Jarret Johnson for Inside the Red Raiders
Defensive coordinator Keith Patterson filled in for Matt Wells as head coach on the field during Texas Tech’s 16-13 victory over Kansas in the Red Raiders’ regular season finale Saturday after Wells tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the week. Patterson met with the media virtually via Zoom following the game. Check out the full press conference video embedded above and read Patterson’s answers to several questions below.
Opening Statement
“Before we get started, I’d like to send our thoughts and prayers to the young man who went down for Kansas today. Not sure about the nature of the injury, but definitely want to send our thoughts and prayers from the Texas Tech football family to him and his family. It was a good win. I am proud of our seniors. Winning is hard. It’s never going to be easy, and that was my message to the players, and I am very proud of them and the way they hung tough. Excited to send those seniors out of here with a 4-2 record at home, that’s big in moving our program forward.”
Q: Can you talk about Jacob Morgenstern and his impact this season?
Patterson: “He’s just a big tough guy, I don’t know how many snaps he’s played this year but he’s been beat down. I don’t know if he could play another game to be honest with you. He is beat up bad. I am so proud of him. His body wasn’t right all week long and for him to go out there and fight it just shows you the resiliency, not just in the senior class, but what we have tried to instill in these young men. I have been very proud of Jacob. He comes over constantly throughout the course of the week, his preparation is incredible. What I have asked him to do, he knows four different positions in our defensive scheme, so he’s very versatile. And like I said, I just can’t say enough good things about the young man.”
Q: How was the adjustment to the head coach role you had to step up into for this game?
Patterson: “It wasn’t really weird. On a much smaller nature, I had been an interim head coach at the University of Pittsburgh for a bowl game. I had a coaching staff this time. I only had three coaches missing. I had like seven coaches missing that day. Obviously, we have great coaches on our staff. I leaned heavily on Dave (Yost) and Mark (Tommerdahl) and just making sure our communication was good, we’re on point, and we had a plan going into fourth downs and situations that are going to arise in the course of a game. It was definitely an adjustment. It just creates a little more stress on you. It’s one thing to just bear down and focus on stopping your opponent, but you never know what situations and scenarios are going to come up when you don’t have time to school yourself in 48 hours, so I took it with a grain of salt. Again, we have great leadership and great coaches on our staff.”
Q: What is your schedule like this week with so much uncertainty?
Patterson: “We have a three o’clock defensive staff meeting tomorrow and we’re going to the basketball game at 12:45. Then we are going to have a staff meeting at three, it just never stops. And we’ll probably know a little more moving forward what next week looks like. Again, the other dynamic, you got seniors who are trying to get as much information as they can get too make the best decision for their future, to come back or to move on. There is a lot of things have to be wrapped up and I have no idea on anything as far as postseason play. Recruiting is going to be on the front-burner this week.”
Q: How was your team able to overcome four turnovers and three missed field goals?
Patterson: “The missed opportunities in the first half, I have seen it so many times, you sit there and if you don’t take advantage of those scoring chances early in the game so many times, they comeback to get you. I was hoping it wouldn’t come down to that.”
