UTSA Head Coach Jeff Traylor Postgame Interview 28-16 Win Over Kennesaw State 8.31.24

questions Jeff what was uh your message to your team in the locker room after this one our defense was fantastic they were you know pretty much dominant um we were emotional they had three penalties and just you can't have uh offensively we started off really on fire uh running the ball throwing the ball at will and we're not good enough to overcome penalties and we're just not good enough had a penalty on Houston Thomas down there on our sideline stopped the drive had another penalty on Oscar cost us a touchdown um turnning M linebacker loose running back didn't check it out before he got out of there turn Sam linebacker loose almost got him killed again uh then we got beat you know offensive line going get beat a couple times that's as part of the game but you can't be so not spot sound that you just turn a mic loose and a s loose that's just it's very disappointing then we had the fumble as well um and I think it it spooked our quarterback to be honest with you special teams wise we were we were bad uh we were bad on the punt team uh we were bad on the field goal team um kickoff return was good I did a really good job on that team and thank God uh you I think our nightstalkers would have done good that's our kickoff team but Tate did a good job kicking it out we were bad on our Green Beret team which is our field goal team uh it's always good when you can win uh but we didn't play very well to be very honest with you and uh but you got to celebrate wins it's hard to win college football coach how did you feel about 's performance today uh there's some throws there late he got a little spoed got out there a little bit uh but I go back to you know you just can't turn Mike linebacker loose heard Sayan linebacker loose we got to be better than that and U but yeah you give the kid time he's a better athlete than people think he is he can get out of there but he can't let people run Scot free so I have to watch the video but uh I don't remember many throws where I just felt like they were bad throws I thought there was a couple times late he got off some stuff pretty quickly so I just think he got spooked now I have not watched the video and I need to watch that before I speak too strongly on that Jeff you guys talked during the leadup to the year about some of the things you were ramping up through the preseason to be more ready to play Closer to Peak form today as you see the product out on the field how do you reflect on that effort and how it paid off for you guys uh well that wasn't pink form for sure we got a lot to improve on so obviously defense is really good because they're mostly all returners and they're really good offensively I'd say we're a work in progress and disappointed you know our field goals honestly because Chase is a returner he was really good last year but there's a new holder and U I didn't think we punted the ball very well and their punter had the the day of all days I mean he was smashing that thing and Chris is a really good returner as you know but he he didn't have a real good day today but he's he's going to be fine we had a guy up 38 yards you know which is where he hits it and he was hitting 60 65 yarders and then he did it again and then he did it again so guess what we backed him up guess what he did the next time he shanked it and it lands and rolls so it was literally one of those days the harder you tried uh the more you can go out your own way very frustrating day very frustrating thank God the road runners won be way different if we had hold on the turnover was the play of the game Jimmy w that's big time that was big time he's still he's a wonderful human graduated from Stanford and that was a big time play I think Stitch recovered it who's also been playing his tail off as well there's a couple plays back on defense we had a miscommunication on the back and slipped out that was unfortunate and had a missed tackle but what a great effort by Elliot to run that thing down obviously we had a busted coverage there on the tight end uh that's unfortunate but we played a ton of people and uh um but we got a lot to work on but not Pig performance you're exactly right hey coach can you talk a little bit more about the play your defense I know he gave up about 250 yards um but obviously there are some penalties that hurt as well so you can just talk more about that yeah we just we play a little differently I mean we gave up 50 yards rushing that's on a team that runs the ball that well uh but they got some passes on us but I thought we played really well the emotion theot penalties are disappointing um you know we gave up a third and 14 and we're off the field uh to a a young man that's one of my better people and a really good player and never seen that before out of him so we look frustrated uh but you got to give a lot of credit to Kennesaw too now they played a really good game they really do they're they're very well coached they do a good job defensively scheme wise they got good players too he did a good job rearing all those kids they're a year older and much credit to those guys that quarterback's a dude number one's a dude those guys can play for us right now Jeff what do you think happened with the road runners rushing game today were they doing some stuff up front yeah I mean they did do a good job of scheming of some stuff we've done in the past and uh I'm going to have to watch it U I'm going to have to watch watch it I just I don't know about them I mean they did a good job their boundary pressures they did good job their field pressures they did a good job their internal pressures and uh we were close on a lot of them we just couldn't hit them and um but it'll be good for us to watch the good thing about playing a game this close is you played the whole game you know we had to play the whole game um so that'll be beneficial for us to get to watch the video but obviously it's very frustrating when you're a quarterback and they can't protect you well and they can't run the ball very well down the stretch you know it's hard to play good back there but I don't know uh what that is exactly yet um I identified the Mike coming through and I identified the Sam coming off the edge uh but you know we're really good at running some of those plays inside Zone and counter and you we run we run inside Zone the way we kick it with Oscar up in there as well and we just couldn't get it going we run outside Zone we we didn't do well there either so uh a lot of hard honest evaluation of what happened and I thought I would if you had to oversimplify this it I felt like we lost momentum and those penalties just killed us and we're just not good enough yet when that other team gets their juices up and we get ours down a little bit I thought that hurt us early we were pretty excited they were put it down and we kind of had our way with them and we've got to clean that up and uh but but the two that did it I think it was Houston right in front of our bench I'm not sure which tight end they called it on and then Oscar those are two really good players that have blocked really well for us for a really long time so it'll be interesting for me to go back and watch those two calls you think you'll see some good things on film those first three offensive possessions you you look pretty Cris yeah I mean yeah can't run the F last Leep any better than we did got our freshman loose out there who can really run as you can tell and call Holden on best one of the best tight ends I've ever coach I mean lero is pretty good too but those two really good blocking tight end so we'll watch the video we'll see they made a call it doesn't matter they they called it Jeff how important was it for Owen taking the range to the starting quarterback job to come out and be as strong as he was on those first few drives and what did you see in that sequence you always want guys to come out and play well especially when you're a quarterback and everybody talks about that position so I think it was good for him he got knocked around he had to run some he had to make some contested throws it wasn't all easy he missed some and he made some so there'll be no way harder on him than Owen so um we got to do a better job protected him our screen game was good tonight we've worked really hard at that that's improved um very disappointed we couldn't get the ball down the field that that that just guts me I think y'all been around me long enough to know that that really bothers me and we couldn't protect him long enough to get it down there and guess what that next team coming they like to come out to that quarterback thanks