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Speaker 1: One one on Sports Talk seven on he Let's spend

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ten called a minutes with the head football coach of

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our Houston Cougar's four and oh after an impressive win

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against Oregon State, Willie Fritz, with us on the show. Willie,

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thanks as always for joining us. Congratulations on the great start,

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Congratulations on having a little downtime. But let me ask

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you this, Uh what changed first half? Probably not to

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your satisfaction. Late fourth quarter the charge came through. Does

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special teams make that kind of difference to get the

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positivity going on both sides of the football, especially when

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you're down late in the game.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I had a couple of big block field goals.

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Those are hard to get.

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Speaker 3: You know, we need to add they've.

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Speaker 2: Been having some trouble with their pole kick mechanism, and

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you know Will James and Latrell Cutching really the second

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one that Will James got, there might have been three

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or four guys had a chance to get it, but

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they really came up big. And then you know, we

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played well the second quarter, you know, offensively, we just

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didn't get the points.

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Speaker 3: I think we had the.

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Speaker 2: Ball first and goal on the one yard line twice

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and okay, you I had to kick the field goal

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out of it had hurt us in the second quarter,

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you know, a couple of big plays defensively which we

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hadn't given up much. But another thing, I was just

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proud of the guys that we hung in there. Everybody's

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believing on the sideline, you know, made a few adjustments

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and we're able to pull the game out. It's a

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you know, you go on the road, it's tough. All

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games are tough, but particularly.

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Speaker 3: When you go that far on the road. So I'm

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proud of the fellas well.

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Speaker 1: And when you talk about adjustments, are we dialing up

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or dialing back? Offensively and defensively? Are there such terms?

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Will you go to your coordinator and say, hey, let's

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throw a few more blitzes at him. Will you go

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to your coordinator on the offensive side and say, hey,

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why don't we go a little more up tempo? What

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are the little subtleties that maybe we don't know about

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just watching the game that you could definitely tell there

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was a momentum shift in that game because of the

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special teams and because things got more fluid on the

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offensive side of the football.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, you changed tempos. We wanted to do that.

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Speaker 2: The first half, we weren't getting first house, so it's

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hard to stay in a drive when you don't get

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first down. So do a good job with up tempo,

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and you know, it allows you to throw.

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Speaker 3: The ball a little bit more.

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Speaker 2: That can't substitute, you know, do a little better job

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with pass protection most of the time. And that's the case,

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you know, But the main thing is, Hey, here's what

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we've been doing, here's how we've gotten hurt with it.

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Here's something we haven't done yet. This is something that

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we think can be beneficial for us, and you know,

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make those adjustments on the sideline and then go with it.

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You know, we just started off slow unfortunately. You know,

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we just we have a you know, openers. We call

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them the script and you know, and we've gone over

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those in great detail and lined up like we out

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there going to line up or we're just an execute

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the way we too, kept them in the game, got

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them ahead, got them confidence, and then we started playing

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a lot cleaner, particularly in the fourth quarter.

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Speaker 1: I know that it was a non conference game, but

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can that build momentum because most teams are down fourteen

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to fourth quarter you're thinking about the long trip, you're

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thinking about the you know, the late night and you

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know it just wasn't our day. Was Is there anything

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you had to say? Was there a beyond the special teams?

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Was did you know, hey, we got this so we

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can get this game to overtime? We got a chance

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to win this thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that was you know there at the very end,

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you know, there's always scored to get within seven. The

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analytics would have told you that, you know, go for two.

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That way, you kick the extra point, make it the

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extra points, you win the game. Yeah, yeah, don't get it.

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You got another chance to go for two. I just

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I just felt like we get the game in overtime,

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you know, and with our kicker, you know, field goal

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kicker in particular, we were going to have a great

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chance to win the game. So we kind of went

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against the book in that point in time, and you know,

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we got the big fifty yard touchdown reception. You know,

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I almost kicked myself in the butt, you know there

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at the end, with call some timeouts and we had

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them backed up. You know, we could have gotten to

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punt and had about fifty seconds on the clock, but unfortunately.

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Speaker 3: We had to make it a little bit more of

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a nail biting situation than we wanted to.

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Speaker 1: So this Red Rider team coming in is also four

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and oh no surprise you Willie. You followed college football,

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especially Texas football for a long time. They're at five

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hundred and seventy three total yards of offense per game.

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But it's their defense that I think is probably something

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that we're not used to that right Raiders squad on

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that side of the football is playing some excellent football

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right now.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they're doing a good job.

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Speaker 2: You know, they're very very, very talented, question and they're

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very well coached offense, defense, kicking game. You know, it's

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it's a very well coach team. We're gonna have to

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do a super job from the beginning of the game

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at the end of the game on Saturday night. It's

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gonna be very important. We got to play four quarters.

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Speaker 3: You know this.

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Speaker 2: This this last week was the first game that we've

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been minus in the turnover takeaway margin.

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Speaker 3: We're minus one.

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Speaker 2: We need to be plus one. We need to be

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plus two. We got to, you know, play play up

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to our the best we can play. It's gonna be

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important when you play quality opponent like Texas Tech. So

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you know, we've talked about to our kids about that

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and had a good week of practice and look imparted

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to challenge Saturday night.

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Speaker 1: You spend time focusing on a starting quarterback, obviously, you'll

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spend a little bit of time I'm assuming during practice

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on the backup, but not very much. How do you

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do it when you've seen two quarterbacks with some good

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amount of game tape on what Texas Tech has shown

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them so far this year.

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Speaker 2: I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between

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the two guys.

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Speaker 3: You know, they're gonna run there all offense.

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Speaker 2: You know, we've actually gone back and looked a little

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bit of the offense. You know, the offensive coordinator did

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Texas State. He was the offensive coordinator there last year

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and I did a good job there and a lot

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of similarities what he did there with what they're doing.

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Speaker 3: In Texas Tech.

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Speaker 2: It's the style of offense that they run, and and

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you know the quarterbacks are going to pretty much, you know,

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run that offense. You're not going to get one guy's

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going to be primarily a runner and the other guy

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primarily a passer. So we just got to be smart

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with you know, personnel groupings, formations, splits, you know, down

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in distance, tendencies, you know, and then trying to make

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the very best call based on all those different things.

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Speaker 1: So if you had a chance to and then look,

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you'll win a game by one point if it's forty

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seven to forty five, or you'll win a game of

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fourteen to thirteen if it goes to Cougar's way, which

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hopefully it does.

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Speaker 4: How do you see this thing turning out?

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Speaker 1: You're assuming uh, you know, low turnover side on yours side,

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maybe grabbing one away from them. What other keys in

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tangibles could you anticipate for your squad if you're gonna

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pull off this victory on Saturday.

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Speaker 2: Night, Well, you're correct, We'll take it either way that

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you yeah, but uh, you know, we talk all the

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time about the playing to win, and the number one

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component of the playing to win for us is you know,

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turnover takeaway margin. You know, if we can let me

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plus in a turnover takeaway margin, it's going to give

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us a you know, great opportunity to be successful. And

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then I think we've got to do a good job

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with you know the run game, you know, running the

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ball successfully stop them from running, you know, you know,

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and make a team one dimensional. You know, running the

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ball allows you to be two dimensional, I think, and uh,

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you know, you don't allow a team to run the

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ball and makes them one dimensional.

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Speaker 3: I have to throw it every day. You've got some

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calls that are gonna be in your favor. Kicking game.

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I think it's gonna be important.

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Speaker 2: We talk about, you know, winning the special teams and

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you know, on the thing, I was this point last week.

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We talked about Kobe go beat the Coogs all the time.

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We had wait too many penalties. You know, we had

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ten penalties. I think they accepted eight of them. Three

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of the penalties pre stamp, you know, or self inflicted wounds.

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So we got to play a much cleaner game.

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Speaker 1: Does time of possession mean a whole lot to you,

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because I've watched plenty of games where teams will be

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on the field eight nine minutes and only score a

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field goal, and then sometimes you're on the field for

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a minute and a half and you go eighty yards

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and four plays. Is that a factor in your mind

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in terms of keeping that prolific offense off the field.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's certainly helps you. But you got to be

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able to run the ball and you know, you know,

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control the game with short passes and all those kind

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of things. You know, if you're on the field offensively,

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you're playing a really good defense.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 2: They're not doing anything to you, so you know, you

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got to see how the game happens. You know, we'll

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take a touchdown, whether it's a one play drive or

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a twelve play drive. You know, control of the clock really,

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you know, gives you a leg up with not having

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to defend a potent offense.

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Speaker 3: Like they have.

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Speaker 4: Wellie, thank you for the time as always.

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Speaker 1: Congratulations on the late night when you'll be in a

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normal spot at six o'clock.

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Speaker 4: You'll be wearing the Royal blue, the Houston uniforms.

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Speaker 1: That should be a great crowd, great atmosphere, and I

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hope the kids enjoy the experience.

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Speaker 3: Well, thank you very much, Go Koogs.

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Speaker 1: Thank you will appreciate it. Willie Fritz joining US University

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of Houston football coach with us here at one forty one

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on Sports Talk seven