Snyder Press Conference Report: Baylor

Everybody's talking about the Bears and there was no shortage of that at Vanier on Tuesday. Oddly though, the beginning of the press conference centered on their defense:

They've gotten better year in and year out. They're playing awfully well on defense. That's what goes unnoticed… You think in terms of the turnovers… They've got this massive number of long yardage plays. I think there's something like 55 plays that are 25 yards or more and five or six of them belong to the defense. They are opportunistic to say the least.

Snyder was then asked to talk about the problems on the Wildcat offense that led to defeat in Stillwater:

We have to be a more disciplined football team and that encompasses the penalties and the turnovers. It's just a matter of doing things the appropriate way. There's a way to prevent most turnovers. Maybe not all. But most. There's a way to prevent penalties. Maybe not all… We're just not as disciplined right now as we need to be.

Is ball control the way to beat the Bears? Perhaps...

We had the ball for 21 minutes in the second half of the ballgame last week and turned the ball over five times. Those two numbers don't go together. So, you'd like to say yes, you need to sit on the ball and have a major amount of the possession time but other things enter into it as well. If we had the discipline not to have the turnovers and not to have the penalties, then that possession time would have won us the ball game. A lot of teams have had possession time on [Baylor]. It doesn't take them a long time to score.

Snyder of course would not comment on the status of his top two receivers but he was asked to comment on the performance of the ones that saw most of the playing time last week:

There is a reason why [Tramaine Thompson and Tyler Lockett] were starters. These young guys just haven't had the experience… We had five receivers on the field at one time last week, I'm not sure I knew all of them. They've just been hidden down in the depth chart. But they are good young guys and they work hard.

Commenting again on the mistakes at OSU, Snyder talked about whether or not they can be corrected in practice:

I think they can. We were not a totally polished football team aside from the penalties and the turnovers… In all reality the mistakes that we made… are very manageable in terms of being able to make the corrections and sustain the corrections.

Coach talked briefly about what he thinks contributes to Baylor's success in the ground game:

I think the balance they have in their offense is really what allows them to do so many things so well.

He was asked to talk about what kind of effect the 0-2 start in conference play has on the players and took a very optimistic approach to his answer:

In 2003 we lost our first two ballgames to the same two teams — Texas and Oklahoma State — both of them close ballgames… that team was able to put it all together. It's not that they don't have the capabilities, I think they've proven that to a certain degree but I'm not sure they realize how capable they are.

Coach was asked about the likelihood of the return of Boston Stiverson:

It's not going to happen too quickly, certainly won't this week.

The lack of carries for John Hubert was brought up as well:

That's predicated on whats there and whats not there… that doesn't mean he couldn't have carried the ball more and done so successfully. We did a lot with the quarterback run game and that was viable so that's what we did.

As many have been want to do lately, Snyder took the time to rank Baylor's offense all-time, specifically among offenses his team has faced:

I could not tell you that I can think of an offense at this particular moment in time that is seemingly more prolific as Baylor's offense is, as we speak. The numbers speak for themselves.

Next he was asked to comment on his defense's performance against the Cowboy's tempo, something that will be of big importance next Saturday:

The tempo with which they ran their offense really wasn't a detriment to us. We just made some bad decisions… made some bad plays… I was really proud of our defense in the times when our offense turned the ball over… and they held Oklahoma State to field goals.