Kansas dropped its fifth straight game, and it was another one-possession loss at Arizona State, 35-31. Head coach Lance Leipold spoke with the media after the game, talking about the defense being hurt with injuries, the continued close losses, battling the heat, and the team’s mentality heading into the bye week.
How did you handle the injuries to the defense…
I'm proud of the young guys. They got thrown in there, worked in some spots. But as always, nobody feels sorry for you. And it's part of football. We're playing some guys that didn't even travel the last away game. But, I think that'll pay off somewhere down the road for us.
What do you think it will take to get from being close to being there where the games end up going your way…
Well, each and everyone's got a little different scenario to it. So, it's kind of hard to say, but we had some special teams melting, and the first half like some execution things. I mean, this game is pretty equal when I'm looking at this across the board. But, you know, we've had some untimely penalties, we had some opportunities where we could do some things. But again, obviously I'm not going to blame one side of the ball or the other.
On Quentin Skinner’s good night (6 catches, 130 yards, 2 touchdowns)…
I thought it was one of Quentin's better games. Obviously, he got targeted, probably more than he has, so it's good. It's something we've been working on. I think one was a busted coverage, his first touchdown, and his last one was a great catch. But, yeah, it was good to get him in the kind of rhythm of things.
How did the team handle the heat…
It's nowhere near as humid as some, so it's actually very comfortable, even though it's in the 90’s. I thought our guys handled that well, I think we might have had a couple cramps. I was proud [of] the way we handled that. I don't think that was a big effect. We rotated some guys that we thought would be in that realm possibly, that are sometimes our crampers.
What do you hope to accomplish during your bye week…
We've got a lot to work on in all three phases. Get a little healthier and reset a little bit. We'll continue with our format of what we do. We practice three times. Coaches will be out recruiting, work with our young guys a little bit extra. But we'll continue to do everything we can to prep for Houston, to get ourselves on track. And that's all I really, I can ask our guys. I said, this team is so close right now, we’ve got to continue to find all those little things and scenarios to get better at every single thing.
There's a lot of little reasons why we're not quite there, okay? And ultimately, that comes back to the head coach to make sure that we get that corrected. We could be sitting here at 6-0, and I'd still be saying the same stuff that has to get corrected. That doesn't change and the work ethic of this staff and this program will not change, okay? You go back and you keep trying to hit every bit of fundamentals and everything that you can do to be the best team that you can be. And that's the only way I know how to do it.
How did you handle the injuries and young players in the game...
A lot of these questions are always early, because I didn't have a chance to see it. But I'm proud of all our guys. I'm proud of the young guys. They got thrown in there, worked in some spots. But as always, nobody feels sorry for you. And it's part of football. We're playing some guys that didn't even travel the last away game. I think that'll pay off somewhere down the road for us just. And I'm not saying any of those guys were the reason why we didn't win this game. So, again, the inability to close out things and inability to really both halves and we're not to our what where we need to be.
And we're close as you can keep seeing. But that's a tiring old story. I thought we had some explosive plays and a little more than we had in the past. So that's hopefully a positive sign. We can build off of it.
