THE MODERATOR: We’re joined by Texas players. We’ll take questions.
Q. Case, you had that great drive that capped off with a touchdown. What happened to the passing game tonight?
CASE McCOY: We just done a couple things wrong. Dropped a couple third down conversations. They played a couple right coverages on the third downs. That’s basically what happened in the passing game. We were trying to run the ball, control the clock most of the downs, got some third‑down situations, had a couple drops, a couple missed cues. Played some bad balls.
Q. Case, I know coach said this wasn’t about him and his farewell. How tough is it not to finish the way you wanted to for him?
CASE McCOY: Oh, it’s tough. There’s no doubt about it. We thank y’all and our Texas fans for the way they sent him out. They treated him right tonight.
It’s tough. We would rather have gone out with a win for sure. We love the man. The man loves us. Inside that locker room we know we fought for him. That’s all that matters.
Q. Jackson, there was a lot of emotion out there. What was it like at the end of the game?
JACKSON JEFFCOAT: Like Case said, it’s tough not to get a win for him. We love Coach Brown. I mean, Mrs. Brown is like a mom to us. She takes care of us when we’re on trips.
Coach Brown loves us. He is never shy to show that he loves us. He cares about us other than football. So it’s tough to see him go. Even though me and Case are moving on, I mean, we are Texas. I mean, this is the place we want to come back to and see Coach Brown. It’s always going to be tough not having him there.
Q. Coach, what is going through your mind right now?
COACH BROWN: Disappointed in the game. Guys played hard. We couldn’t move the ball as well as we needed to. The offensive guys tried. It just didn’t work. They did great on defense.
Kicking game was pretty good. We didn’t have problems with it. That’s something they’ve done really well. And defense played really well. Just disappointed as hard as the guys tried with all the distractions, me being one of those distractions, they’ve done everything right for two weeks. They worked really hard in practice. I thought they tried as hard as they could tonight. We played a really good football team. I thought that quarterback looked like one I saw play for us a while back.
Q. Coach, can you elaborate on the defense. You hold them to one touchdown.
COACH BROWN: Defense played great. Defense was disappointed in the one right before the half. That was a long one. Offensively we’re sitting there at 13‑7 with the ball in our territory for two straight series and couldn’t move it and couldn’t score. We actually could have been ahead at halftime. To not be able to take advantage of that, give the long drive before the half was disappointing. I was also proud of the way the kids fought the second half.
Q. Coach, how difficult have the last two weeks been on you? What’s going to be the most difficult part going forward not being the head coach at Texas?
COACH BROWN: It is what it is, and you do what you got to do. I’ve gone to work every day. I’ve done the same things I would have done regardless of the circumstances. I haven’t really thought much about tomorrow. Sally and I decided we would do everything, we asked our assistant coaches and we asked our players to do everything they could do to win this football game and we committed to them to do the same. So I’m proud of the coaches. They haven’t been out looking for jobs, not showing up for meetings. Nobody was late. The guys did everything they could do. Everybody in this program did everything in the last two weeks we would have done the last year or the year before. As far as the future, I haven’t gotten there yet.
Q. As well as Malcolm did in the first half, was it so much the game dictated you guys trying to throw more in the third quarter?
COACH BROWN: Yes, yes. We were trying to win, not get yards.
Q. As much as you were focused on this game and the outcome itself, did anything hit you when you were walking out of the tunnel with Sally at the end there?
COACH BROWN: Yeah. I wish we would have won. 158 times we won, feels better than the others.
Q. Has the reality of you not coaching sunk in yet?
COACH BROWN: Probably not. I’ll probably get up at 6:00, and be watching a video and be worried about somebody. I told them to stay out of trouble tonight, that I didn’t need a call.
Q. Jackson, the past three games for you have gone well. This being your last game at Texas, how do you take that to the possibility of the next team?
JACKSON JEFFCOAT: I just use this as motivation. That’s what I do. I use it as a chip on my shoulder and just go back to work. I might have played a good game, but when the team loses, I mean, your goal is to win. I’m not going to feel happy about what I did. It’s a team effort. We needed to win the game.
Q. Mack, you told us in the past you’re not one to reflect. Will you allow yourself to reflect in these next few days about the last seasons?
COACH BROWN: I don’t know. I’ve never been here before. I know after I left North Carolina, I never looked back, never thought about any of those games. Since I’ve been here, I never really looked back. I want to be driven and look forward. I don’t know. That will be something that I really do not see myself doing. But I also need to look at where we go next, what we do as a family. That’s something that we haven’t taken much time to do. We’ll take some time off here and visit and talk and see where we go.
Q. Malcolm, on the game, you had 102 yards by the end of the second quarter. Do you look and thing what happened?
MALCOLM BROWN: Like Coach Brown said, we needed to try to score points. We needed to pass the ball more to the receivers. You can’t keep running and try to get yards. You got to put points on the board. Oregon offense was great. Their defense was great, as well. They were stopping us. We just couldn’t get going.
COACH BROWN: Obviously, they put the ball on the line of scrimmage to start the second half. Malcolm touched it two or three times the second half. They did a good job of that. We had to be more balanced. I’m proud of Malcolm. 132 yards, coming back home. Had a great year. Stayed healthy. Can’t wait to see what the future brings for him.
Q. Mack, even with the tough year, you talked about having a soft spot for the senior class. How do you see yourself remembering this group as time goes on?
COACH BROWN: I told them in the dressing room, this will be one of the best senior classes we ever had because they held a very tough situation together at 1‑2. They’ve never wavered. They’ve always been positive. They’ve always led the team. When we’ve asked them to do something, they’ve always done it 100%, and that’s including the last two weeks and tonight.
This will be a very successful senior class in their life when they get out of the here.
Q. What do all the tributes from the fans mean to you?
COACH BROWN: Our fans have been great for 16 years. It’s unbelievable. Sally and I can’t even answer all the emails, texts, Facebook messages, tweets for the last two weeks. It’s been wonderful. But it’s really been that way. You hear a lot of the negative stuff. I honestly have never had and Sally has never had anything negative said to us in person since we’ve been here. Fans have been wonderful. Fans were wonderful tonight. They’ve been wonderful on bad games. Sally and I have absolutely no regrets. We’ve had a wonderful 16 years. We’re glad we came here. We’ve met so many great friends and had so many moments with these players and so many ex‑players on that sidelines tonight and in that dressing room.
Those are the memories you have, what you might have meant in a young man’s life.
It’s been a wonderful 16 years. It’s been a great ride. Now we have to reassess and see where we’re going. We want this bunch to have success moving forward. That’s what you told the young ones in the dressing room is to get better, let’s get back in the top 10, back in the BCS mix the next year. It will be the first time we ever had a playoff as such. Texas should be in that. There’s a lot of great players coming back. New energy, everybody will be all excited. Y’all got tired of my stories. You got tired of my jokes. Honestly, I got tired of some of yours (laughter). It’s good to have a new story to write about.
Q. Coach, Aliotti also in his last game today. Did you get a chance to talk to him?
COACH BROWN: Yeah, I’ve known Nick for probably 25, 30 years. He challenged me in golf. He said he was a 20. I heard he was a 25. He’s probably a 16. That’s the way those defensive guys act (laughter). He had a great career, has done a wonderful job, and he will be missed.
Q. Coach, you were focused on this game tonight. Over the two weeks since you made your decision, have you had any regrets about making that decision?
COACH BROWN: I have not. I think it’s best for Texas. It’s best for me, it’s best for the players. We need to win more than eight games. Last year was nine. I really thought we had a chance to win all the games this year. It didn’t work. It’s my job to make that work. I told them tonight, the only regret I had is we didn’t win enough games this year. We didn’t win as many games as we had good players. I feel like a lot of great players are coming back. New energy, new staff, new ideas will really, really help these kids move forward. Sometimes you get to a point, as I said, you got here and the fan base needed to be pulled together because it was very divided in 1997. We pulled them together. We had a great run. DBs got out of the box. Now there’s some for you, some against you. That’s not fair to these guys. They need to have positive energy all the time. That’s what I want for them. I’m excited to get back to that.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.
COACH BROWN: Thank you, all. Appreciate you guys. Thank you very much.
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