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Speaker 1: We'll recap some of the astro's decisions coming up in

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just a couple of minutes. Right now, let's spend a

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few minutes with our good friend, the head football coach

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of the University of Houston Cougars, Willie Fritz, And he

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was brought to you by the Joint Chiropractice, the official

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chiropractor of the University of Houston Athletic department. Willy is

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with us here getting ready for to Saturday's game with

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Oklahoma State. Willie, thank you for the time. Is always

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take us through Connor's situation when you needed to pull

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him and where we stand right now getting ready for

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this game against the Cowboys.

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Speaker 2: Well, he bes in great shape. You know, we put him.

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Anytime there's anything you worry about with the guy with

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a concussion or whatever, you immediately put him into you know,

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what we call concussion protocol. And he was doing good

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on Sunday, and then he's continued to progress and been

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fine all the way through and you know, practice today

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and we feel great about him playing on Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Obviously you have Xeon's eye and uh as his backup

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and has been able to play some at the collegiate level.

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How much does the playbook change? How much does the

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game plan change when you make a change in the

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middle of the game like that.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it does a little bit, you know. Uh, you know,

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you have a full compliment of plays that you run,

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you know, your playbook, and now you want the quarterbacks

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to learn all of it. You know, there's definitely some

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parts of it that one guy might do better than

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another guy. And uh, you know, so there are a

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few changes, you know, probably a little bit more run

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game with Xeon that you know, Connor runs the ball

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very well.

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Speaker 1: Also, Uh, what did you think overall of his performance?

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I know it's always difficult to be the backup quarterback

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as you're only one play away, but for a guy

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like that to have some experience as a nice fallback

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in case Connor can't go for you or can't be

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at one hundred percent.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, he came in and we gave us

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a spark. You know, you had a couple of really

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good runs and uh ended up catching you know, getting

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that town with you know, a nice throat to Mark Thomas,

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and unfortunately we just you know, we needed to play

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really well. We need that going into the game. I

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don't think we played as well as we were capable of. Uh,

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I do a better job of getting everybody prepared, coaches

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and players, and then we got to go ahead and

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ext cut on game day. But uh, you know, the

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hats off to you know, then they played it extremely

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well and very talented team and and uh, you know,

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just we just got to do a better job of

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executing and you know, and call the right things offense, defense,

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kicking game.

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Speaker 1: I knew you were so yeah, I knew you were

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so impressed and proud of your guys in the low

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turnover count and unfortunately Rude's luckily had this past week.

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When you look at the game film on that, were

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there some things that tech Tech was doing or was

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it just a self destruction a little bit on your side.

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Speaker 2: Oh, but both they do a good job of getting

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after the footballs like we do and targeting it when

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someone's running. If you know, any time you over to

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gas Page trying to get the ball out, you're in

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his blind spot. And did that on occasion. We had

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a foolish interception that we threw that we didn't need

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to throw. That was an easy one form. But you're right,

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when you play a quality team, you play anybody. You know,

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your plus one plus two, plus three got a great

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chance of winning the ball game, and fortunately we're minus two.

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And when that happens, you don't win very many games.

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Speaker 1: I thought Willie the most encouraging part during that stretch,

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unfortunately that the squad was turned the ball over was

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you were holding Texas Tech to field goals, and that

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had to be a positive sign that your defense, you know,

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try to keep in the game as long as you could.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they did. They did a good job early in

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the ball game. We talk all the time about four

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point plays, both offensively and defensively, when you you know,

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hold the offense to a field goal to allow me

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get it, you know, a touchdown seven points. You know,

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the same thing on offense, you know, when you get

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an opportunity to get a touchdown, and we didn't. You know,

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we had to take a field goal that after we

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had that long completion to Kobe Young. So you want

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four point plays there too, touchdown instead of field goals.

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So you know, that's a big that's one of the

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bigger points in winning football games is scoring touchdowns over

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field goals. And we got to do a better job

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of that.

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Speaker 1: Well, you're going to Oklahoma State this week. They've been

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a coaching change. If I was to look at their

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last week's game film as compared to when coach Gunny

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was running things early in the year, would I see

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a dramatic difference.

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Speaker 2: No, not too much. You know, they got the same

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offensive coordinator. Matter of fact, he was here as the

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offensive coordinator one year back at twenty thirteen. Doesn't mean yep,

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and you know so not a dramatic difference in what

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they were doing prior to you know, coach getting let

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go and what they're doing now.

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Speaker 1: And for your guys, you don't you haven't had to

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have this experience this year because it was your first loss.

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But to get out of the troops, what was practiced

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like this week? What was the mental focus? Did you

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notice anything different you try to not reinvent the wheel

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after a tough loss at home? Or do you need

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to give the urgency of hey, if we want to

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do some things and get back to a ball and

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be competitive in this Big twelve, we need to shake

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things up a little bit.

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Speaker 2: No. You know, the one thing we did do is

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we always take off Sunday and then Monday. We came

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in a week We watched every single tape, you know,

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the offense watched every single play together, and I just

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kind of see, you know, probably five or six times

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I heard the coaches, hey, I won a good call

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on my behalf. I sat in there with them and

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told them a few things I could have done better.

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But we also had the guys look and see things

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they could have done better. We did the same thing

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with defense, did the same thing with kicking game. You know.

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We usually run through the tape pretty quick and we

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move on to the next opponent, but spend a little

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bit more time on it just to you know, not

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you know, repeat the same mistakes that we did in

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that ball game. So I thought it was really good

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on Monday, and I think we've had a excellent week

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of practice.

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Speaker 1: We'll leave it at that, coach, We'll see you at

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the plane tomorrow. Congratulations on a good season so far.

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Looking forward to getting up there and getting that victory

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against Oklahoma State, and we'll look forward to that game

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on Saturday and still Water. Thanks for the time as always, Hi,

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thank you, you got to thank you. Willie Fritz joining

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us here, the head coach of your Houston Cougar is

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brought to you by again the Joint Chiropractor, the official

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chiropractor of University of Houston Athletics. Eleven o'clock to start

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time on TNT. Not a place you would normally think

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for college football, but they're starting to carry some games

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now and we'll look forward to having that for you

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Saturday as well on our sister station nine fifty KPRC