SUNDAY REWIND: Matt Wells with the local media

QUESTION: After looking at the tape, what did you see in the second half that showed you some places to improve this week as you head toward Oklahoma.

MATT WELLS

“I think the first thing just this week would be just sustaining things on offense. That's what the story of the second half became. First of all, not very many possessions. I think we had 10 on offense and we defended nine, so when you don't have very many possessions, everything’s magnified.”

“So just sustainability on offense continuing to find ways to run the ball and move the ball like that we've got to get it in the hands of (Kaylon Geiger) and (Erik Ezukanma) a lot more, but just sustaining drives.”

QUESTION: How has your philosophy changed on bringing Donovan Smith into more non -running packages?

MATT WELLS

“I think you've seen that the last couple weeks – that he doesn't just come in to run the option. You certainly don't want to pigeon-hole yourself from a schematic standpoint … into to one or two things, and so I think that's why we've expanded his package, and you've seen him throw the ball and you've seen him throw a quick game, you've seen him throw (deep) shot, you've seen him throw some play-action. You’ve seen him not only run the option but hand the ball off and do some different things, so we’ve got to continue to do that as long as you're planning, because he gives you an advantage of some of the things that he can do. You do need to expand it just so you're not predictable.”

QUESTION: Why do you think this team has struggled to be consistent from one week to the next.

MATT WELLS

“That's a good question. I don't know exactly because I don't think it's been bad inconsistencies. You look at coming from Kansas to Kansas State – let’s just go the most recent. You know yesterday's game comes down to a handful of plays and we didn't make them. Whether we didn't execute right, or mistakes were made, we certainly didn't lose (Saturday) because of heart or effort or anything like that, which I don't think we've lost this year on that. But we've had letdowns at Texas and (against) TCU. (Saturday) was not a letdown, yesterday we didn't win a close game. We didn't make the plays down the stretch you needed to make like we did against West Virginia.”

QUESTION: When you get together with your coaches on a day like (Sunday), how do you kind of assess how you guys can help players get through and make plays like that get through in those situations?

MATT WELLS

“We do it every Sunday win or lose. We get together and you, you talk about things that you did well that you got to keep doing things you did not do well, and you need to move on from. Either schemes or personnel or things that you got to improve on we do it every Sunday and that's our job to try to get individual players to play better. You know so that's ta challenge each and every week with every kid we got in the program and even the guys that are playing well how do you continue to give them things for them to take their game to another level, the guys that are playing very well, right now, like (Colin Schooler or Riko Jeffers). But then guys that maybe didn't play as well, that’s our job, whether it's inspiration or it's schematics or whatever.”

QUESTION: I think it was Bill Belechik who famously said ‘ignore the noise.’ How much do you have to get your guys to ignore all the noise that's bubbling to the surface right now?

MATT WELLS

“There's noise around every program that faces a loss – that has a loss. We're 5-3 right now we're doing some things that are really, really good. So you know I choose to lean on that and give these guys confidence. Right now, I think we're first in the country, one of our coaches told me, with plays over 40 yards or more. We're second on over 50 yards or more, and from an explosive standpoint we're doing some good stuff. Didn't do as much as we needed to do yesterday and I'm the first to admit it. Defensively, I think in six out of eight games, we've held teams under 100 yards rushing; I don't know if anybody knows that. … That's something that's pretty good. We didn’t make a handful of plays (Sunday) and we got beat by that.

“The noise is there from the very first time you lose, and that's the business we're in. That's college football and we certainly understand that. But I do know this: The players continue to believe, and they continue to fight and we’re sticking together, the coaches and players. We will continue to control our own destiny in terms of how this season turns out by the choices that we make every week and every day. They continue to invest in this program and so we'll continue to do that.”

QUESTION: Did you have a chance to look at the punt return – was he up a little bit further than then you wanted him to be?

MATT WELLS

“No, he was right where we wanted him to be. I just think we misjudged it in the win a little bit in the wind. Certainly, he would have liked to catch it, he would have liked to catch it and, unfortunately, that hurt us with the field position. We lost 20-something yards right there in field position right there.”

QUESTION: How close is Tyler Shough to being cleared to return, and how likely is he to play after the open date?

MATT WELLS

“I won't speculate on the second part of the question. That's not fair to Tyler, I don't think, coming back from an injury. But we're certainly getting to that point where it is 5 or 6 weeks in the next couple of weeks. He's working his tail off in the training room. He's in every quarterback meeting. He's doing things with Drew and Dave with our training staff every day. He's in the building every day. My guess is that at some point, our doctors will re-X-ray or MRI him and see where that is because that's about the timeline.”

QUESTION: How do you turn Tyree Wilson into a more dominant player?

MATT WELLS

“I think Tyree has played his best football as a Red Raider in the last 3-4 week. …He's playing better than he's ever played, and hopefully Tyree’s better ball is in front of him. He continues to keep practicing well and staying healthy is the key for him and playing good ball. I think he'll continue to play good we need him to. He's done a really nice job. I've been proud of him.”

QUESTION: What did Krishon Merriweather do to get back more into the linebacker rotation?

MATT WELLS

“I think he's practicing better, and he certainly played well. We did not have Jacob Morgenstern, who was out with an injury and so he needed to play well. Colin Schooler played on the outside, Riko played on the outside, Brandon Bouyer-Randle played a little bit. Krishon stayed inside at ‘Mike’ this week, and so it was a little bit of the mix of who was healthy. Krishon is playing well and I’m certainly proud of him.”