Let’s go straight to the press room and get Coach Leach’s thoughts:
“Well, the biggest thing is we fell in the same pitfall that, you know, a couple of other teams did. And it's disappointing because it's one of those things that you see it, you describe it, you focus on it, and, you know, biggest thing is we didn't coach well enough to beat A&M, and we
didn't play well enough to beat A&M. I thought A&M had better tempo than we did. I thought their pads were better than ours. I thought they had better technique than we did. And you know what happened. We pound on Kansas State, so A&M looks at the film all week. They strut around and laugh. And, you know, ho-ho-ho, ha-ha-ha, and they listen to their fat little old girlfriend, and, then pretty soon they – you know, what happens in Manhattan (62-14 A&M loss to the Wildcats) happens.
“Then, well, the first thing that we do is we go in our meeting and we talk about, you know, we're not going to -- we're going to respect everyone. We're going to fear no one. We're going to -- we're not going to compare scores and we're not going to listen to our fat little girlfriends.
You know, in the -- like I said, it starts with the coaching staff. But in the back of our minds as
coaches, and in the back of on our minds as players, well, ha-ha-ha, he-he-he, we pounded
Kansas State. Kansas State pounded A&M. So therefore, we're really going to pound Texas A&M. You know, I would like to have a dollar for everybody -- for every time somebody
said something about, you know, how many points we were going to score or how bad we were going to beat them, you know, how great we are, and how good everything looks. Well, it's all a bunch of crap.
“Here's the thing -- and, of course don't get me wrong, this isn't a rip on the media. But I freely
rip on the media, as you guys well know, if I feel like it. But certainly the important thing about
media is it generates all kinds of attention, support, makes it exciting for a broader faction of people than just players and coaches. So I think it's a critical role and a very important role and fun and exciting role for everybody. But I'll tell you if you're a football team, and a guy 18 to 20 years old trying to reach your maximum potential, and you don't have the discipline to keep your nose out of the newspaper and have one eye looking -- and as coaches, too --how good you are, and this and that, it's just, it makes your efforts toxic, and it's unfortunate we didn't have the discipline to do that, that's the part that's most disappointing.”
