Oregon Head Coach Mark Helfrich On coming to the Valero Alamo Bowl
“Obviously, we had the opportunity to be there two years ago. It’s a very great opportunity and very exciting opportunity for our team, our program and our fans to be back in San Antonio. Everybody at the Valero Alamo Bowl was fantastic to us, to our players and everybody who made the trip down a couple of years ago. Obviously San Antonio is great for everybody young and old. The only negative to the trip is playing another Hall-of-Fame coach and a great program that we have a ton of respect for. Our guys will be very excited to start to get pointed toward TCU and finish up recruiting and exams. I know this will put a little bit of pep in their step.”
Head coach Gary Patterson on coming to the Valero Alamo Bowl
“I would like to speak for our Chancellor and the University itself to thank the Valero Alamo Bowl in inviting TCU and its fans to come down and play against a very good football team in the Oregon Ducks. We also want to congratulate Coach Helfrich and his group. I’ve known Coach Helfrich and a lot of guys on their staff for many years and they just do an unbelievable job. Our kids are really excited about 1) playing in Texas, 2) coming to San Antonio and being a part of this football game and to get the chance one more time to really enjoy the 2015 season. On behalf of our staff, our Chancellor, our Board of Trustees and our University I just want to say thank you to the Valero Alamo Bowl for giving us this opportunity. We’ve already started practicing a little bit to try and put on a good show.
Patterson on his team
“Trevone Boykin, our senior quarterback, has done a fantastic job in his two years as starter. We probably wouldn’t be in the position we are in without him. He was hurt a little bit at the end of the year but we expect him to be at full strength come game day. He probably was at about 75 percent in the Baylor game but is really ready to go. I think he’s looking forward to it along with the rest of our kids. We were young on defense and it’s very well-documented that we had a lot of injuries in the beginning of the season. But we really grew up and played really well towards the end of the year. We got ourselves in a position to go for two for the win against Oklahoma up in Norman, but the group itself is really excited. We have a lot of San Antonio products on our team that are very excited about having the chance to come home and play in front of their hometown fans. We’ve got to get ready to go, we’re playing a very good football team.”
Helfrich on his team
“We had a few stomach bugs early, and as Coach Patterson alluded to, everyone gets a little nicked and dinged at some point during the year. It seemed like ours were kind of on top of each other early. I think our guys are playing with a forward lean and a ton of confidence. Now we’re facing a completely different in animal in TCU and Coach Patterson. It’s well-documented that he’s a great defensive coach, and coupled with one of the most dynamic players and one of the most dynamic offenses with all of the players around him, they can put up some scary numbers.”
Helfrich on recruiting: “For us, we obviously can’t drive to San Antonio like Coach (Patterson) can, but we have several players from the state of Texas on our roster including a couple of San Antonio products. That’s huge for them to be able to come back home and cool for us to have our brand out there. I think the key to San Antonio is just like a lot of the state of Texas: great schools, great coaching, guys that you know what you’re going to get. They’re coached well from the ground up and it’s (San Antonio) a fun place to be. I thought San Antonio was an ideal place for the families, the coaches and our families to have a tremendous experience thanks to Derek (Fox) and the Alamo Bowl Committee. The players had a great time, they had a combination of a big-time city with a small-town kind of feel at the same time.”
Patterson on Recruiting
For us, we’ve been here 18 years now and we have upwards to seven San Antonio products on our football team. We are here and have won ballgames because of our players who have come out of the state of Texas, and this year’s no different. Really all the guys we talked about, from our seniors Aaron Green and Derrick Kindred to our redshirt freshman Ty Summers, are all great players and come from great programs. They’re just great kids, and for us to be successful we’ll have to keep spending time in San Antonio and recruiting young people to come out of there. They have great families and great people.”
Patterson on the postseason experience
“Well, first, my philosophy is that you go to a Bowl to win. We’ve always had great experiences but you always have a little bit of a bad taste in your mouth if you don’t win your bowl game. We’ve always taken the philosophy that you go to win. It’s not just one of those things where it’s more of the gravy on top and you go just to go do it. We’ve always felt the bowl practices were the jumpstart for the practices in Spring Ball, grow up your next football team and also play well in the bowl game. The way we’ve approached it is we just always try to play our best ball game. For the preseason rankings and all the other things that go on, that’s the last thing for them to see. The opportunity for us to play on January 2, the day after the College Football Playoff game, makes it a playoff game for us. I think Oregon is a team that if they hadn’t had all their injuries would’ve been a Top-4 team. We feel like without a couple injuries we had we would’ve been like that. I think the key for us is to get healthy and try to go and play a great ball game. I expect two really good football teams to get after each other. I think the bowl game very important, not only to finish the season but it’s a jumpstart for what you do the following spring and how your kids feel about you and preseason polls. Obviously, all that helps with recruiting.”
Helfrich on the postseason experience
I think the biggest thing is that it’s just another chance to compete again and be together again. As 2015 transitions into 2016 it’s our last opportunity to have that group together. We always talk about ending the season on an exclamation point instead of a period. You’re working the system of sending out your seniors, ramping up the guys that are still in the program and set the tone for the offseason. I absolutely concur 100% about winning that last game, it’s huge. It’s a great stage the Alamo Bowl has set itself as the premier non-playoff bowl out there. I don’t think there’s any argument against that.”