Texas Tech Red Raiders vs. New Mexico Lobos | Debriefing the Monday Presser

From Monday's press conference.

HEAD COACH TOMMY TUBERVILLE

We've seen this already with the changes in the depth chart from the first game to this game.  IR Bradley Marquez and LB Sam Eguavoen are both starting.  Tuberville is descriptive:

This year's going to be a Baskin-Robbins type of year in terms of depth charts. It will change each week and there will be different varieties, so we're just looking for the right combination.

Tuberville talked about getting the offensive line back to being more consistent:

So we've just got to be more consistent, more physical with the offensive line. Again, this will be their second game that they played together, a different center. I thought Terry McDaniel did a good job in the first game, and he's gotten much better over the week. He'll get better each day in practice.

There were no big plays, lots of small plays and the big concern is the safeties getting behind the receivers for a long pass.  Texas St. didn't really have the quarterback to beat the safeties and your last lines of defense are FS D.J. Johnson and new to the second team, FS Happiness Osunde:

In the defense, we didn't have that many missed tackles. But we did have improper angles to the ball, especially in the running game. They ran the option on us. We had a couple of breakdowns in assignment football which you're going to have.

But the thing that we didn't give up was a big play. We didn't give up, I think, the longest play from scrimmage for them was 17 or 20 yards. Which last year we gave up a ton of 40, 50, 60-yard plays whether it was a pass or a run. We want to try to keep those to a minimum this year. We'll eventually give up one or two, but we want to be better than that than we were last year.

Tuberville keeps preaching depth and thus far, this appears to be the case:

So that's what's exciting about this defense this year is every day we practice two and a half defenses. We've got two deep and we've got four or five other guys that actually could be first or second teamers. And we weren't even close to that last year. So as the year goes, as I said earlier, there will be a variety of different depth charts and guys starting and moving in different positions and just trying to keep as many guys on the field fresh that can run and use their speed as much as they can.

More from Tuberville, QB Seth Doege and RB Eric Stephens after the jump.

Tuberville comments on IR Bradley Marquez and what he brings to the team:

When he starts, he goes fast, and he's going to catch the ball on the run. Quarterbacks sometimes have to adjust to that because some guys kind of throttle down a little bit. He doesn't throttle out of a cut. He comes out of a cut and I think that's one thing that Major League Baseball was looking at, how he accelerated and continued to accelerate his athletic ability.

We're all hoping for TE Jace Amaro to make a push and I'm thinking that given a bit more time, he'll make a significant impact.  Just be patient.

Jace Amaro's doing good. He's a young guy that's learning the speed of the game. Sometimes he doesn't understand that, hey, when you play you've got to play fast. Sometimes his clock gets slower having to think about a new play, new route, new coverage, and he doesn't play as fast. That is the difference between experienced players in college and inexperienced. Experienced guys can think, react quicker and play fast. And we've got a lot of guys right now that are thinking that have a lot of speed and quickness, but that speed and quickness doesn't turn into speed and quickness as fast because they're having to adjust their thoughts. Am I doing the right thing?

SETH DOEGE

QB Seth Doege talks a bit about when he watches a football game.  I like the fact that he's constantly thinking about what he can do to make himself better and it's interesting that he's watching the Chicago Bears, a.k.a. Mike Martz, and picking up new things:

Oh, yeah, for sure. When I'm watching the college football game I usually watch the quarterbacks obviously. But when I watch them, I would say I don't think Coach Brown would be happy with their foot work right there. The other day I was watching the Chicago Bears and I watched them play and I thought they kind of did something what we kind of do, and I was telling Coach Brown about it. He thought it was cool. It's a different perspective. I'll sit there and rewind it and see what kind of coverage the secondary was in and how they beat it. So it's kind of fun. But I guess if somebody was watching it with me, they wouldn't understand.

Doege is a bit bold on what he thinks the advantages are for his team:

I think we match up well against them with our skill guys versus their secondary. So I think we can take advantage of that. I think they have really good defensive line players and they have a really good linebacker. But I think it's a mismatch with our skill guys and their secondary. So we should be able to win in that area. But the thing is about us is we need to take what's given to us and not try to force things. I'm excited to see how our skill guys match up to their secondary, and if we can make some plays or not.

ERIC STEPHENS

RB Eric Stephens talks a bit about getting off to a strong start:

We have to get off to a better start, like I said. The first half of the Texas State game was completely unacceptable to our standards. We're trying to get off to a much better start than we did in week one.

Stephens continues about not pressing:

Well one side of me wants to blame it on first game jitters, but all I have to do personally is try not to press. I told you after the game I felt like I pressed a lot and tried to make things happen instead of just letting it happen. So I think the whole team just needs to relax and take it easy.