Kansas v Oklahoma Postgame Press Conference Rewind

Kansas head coach Turner Gill

On the KU's defensive effort:

"It was good. It was good to see our players come out and execute. They played with a lot more confidence and that was key. They played pretty well against a very good offensive program and that's always good to see."

On playing some new faces in the game:

"Collin Garrett is the one guy we had not played before and we decided to get him in and ready to roll. Victor Simmons played a lot more reps. We're just try to get guys some more time, thinking they can help us on the defensive side of the ball. They did some good things and helped our defense a little bit in this ball game."

On offensive changes between the first and second half:

"The bottom line is their defensive line, or front seven, beat our front seven. We had a few good things happen for us in the first half, and then they came back and got physical. They were more physical than we were in the second half."

On the condition of center Jeremiah Hatch:

"He's fine. He's now able to move all of his limbs. They still want to evaluate him for the next 24 hours and see what happens for the next few days. I'm glad to see that he's okay as far as moving his limbs because initially he was not able to move anything. It's good to see that he came back and was around our players." 

Kansas sophomore running back James Sims

On 56-yard Touchdown Run:

"It was just a great play by Jordan (Webb). It was a bad snap, Jordan picked it up and made a great play by pitching it to me, and I took advantage of it."

On OU defense becoming more comfortable as game progressed:

"They just adjusted to what we were doing. They kind of knew what we were doing, with inside zone and stuff and there was nothing much we could do about it. They just adjusted to everything we did."

On third quarter struggles and opposing team picking up on what KU is doing:

"For these past couple weeks, it's been the third quarter that's been killing us. We've been outscored every third quarter, and it sucks. We come out, and we practice hard and we work hard every day. It's just one quarter can change the whole game around. We just have to continue to push and get better day by day."

On being so close against Oklahoma:

"It's extremely frustrating because the No. 1 team came in here (to Lawrence) and we had them and we just didn't execute like we wanted to. We'll get better. We're still a young team, and OU is OU. We'll just execute and get better day by day at practice."

Kansas freshman running back Darrian Miller

On change in Jordan Webb as game progressed:

"Honestly, I don't think anything got to Webb. Webb's always a great player, and he's always someone I look to for assistance if anything ever comes up. I feel like he has the best composure on the team.  I feel like he was put in a couple bad situations where they came and sent a couple extra guys. Like I said, just to game plan and adjustment in the second half and send different blitzes that we didn't prepare for. I feel like they just caught him on the back side. I think Webb played a great game."

On play of defense:

"I think the defense played amazing tonight. They were called on a number of times and they answered, holding them to field goals and goal line stops. I think the defense really grew this week. Just because they came out with a mission and said that's what they wanted to do. I think they played great."

On what game means for rest of season:

"I wouldn't go as far as (to say it was a) confidence booster, but almost just kind of seeing who we could play with and a measurement, just seeing how we match up with teams. I feel it's going to launch us into next week to be even hungrier and play hard."

On how he ran today:

"I really can't say it was  anything different from how I usually run. I've just been told to keep your feet moving. I've never had the mentality to run over anyone because I'm like 5-foot-10, 190 lbs. I really didn't think I was going to be running over anyone. I had great blocking and the holes that I hit had certain players there. I tried to make plays. We have a good running game, it's just we have to keep it up in the second half."

Kansas sophomore cornerback Tyler Patmon

On the defense making some big hits:

"Playing one of the top teams in the nation was motivation for our defense to go out there and show that last week wasn't our real defense. We can go out there and player better than we did last week." 

On the defense missing fewer tackles this week:

"We practiced harder this week. We made sure in practice this week that when we tackled our came up on somebody we were in front of them. We had to make sure that we had the tackle secured." 

Kansas freshman linebacker Victor Simmons

On what was different about the KU defense this week:

"We were more focused overall. Everybody came out fired up and ready to do their job."

On if he knew before the game how much he would play:

"I knew, but before this week I had to always be prepared to play because you're always one play away from having to go." 

On the defense's production overall:

"Our first half performance was excellent. We came out and stayed fired up in the second half. We just had a few break downs that we have to work on and we'll continue to improve."

Kansas junior safety Bradley McDougald

On how the defense played overall:

"We played really well at times. There were some plays we still needed to make and they made more plays than we did. We left a couple of plays on the field. We dropped some picks and let them get some conversions."

On what motivated the defense to play better:

"There was a lot of pride-confidence and pride in knowing that this is our home turf and the game that we had last week, if we didn't stay up and play the way we can then it would get that much worse. We just wanted to give it our all and leave it out there." 

On the defense stopping Oklahoma in the red zone:

"The defense was playing for each other. When we were out there we would look at each other and point. We tried to give each other a little confidence going in to each play. We just take it one play at a time. Usually when we get down there we are focused on the wrong thing. We knew what we were doing and we played for each other."