TU Football: Montgomery Discusses Recent Success, Upcoming Game vs. OU

Philip Montgomery met with the media on Tuesday to answer questions about Tulsa's recent success and Saturday’s road game against Oklahoma.

Here are some of Montgomery’s highlights from the presser:

On Upcoming Game Against OU

“It’s going to be exciting. It’ll be loud... They’re a good football team. It’s going to be a great opportunity and a great test for us. But, you don’t approach any game with the thoughts of ‘hey, they’re a lot better than us’ or they’re this, they’re that. We still have to line up between the lines [and] we’re going to play the football game, and when that clock expires we’ll figure out what happened. So, we’re in there breaking it down, trying to give our guys the best opportunity to make plays on both sides of the football and in special teams. I’m sure they’re doing the same thing. Saturday we’ll line up and go to work.”

On Saturday’s Game Plan

"You’ve gotta play your strengths. You’ve gotta figure out how you can help guys get open, find soft areas to sit in, continue to keep working and again still having a one-two punch of what you’re trying to do. You know, their team’s different defensively as well. I mean, they’ve got some new faces over there, some guys have played extremely well, obviously, last week. So, it’ll be a chess match there for a while trying to figure out where we want to set guys and put guys, but that’s the fun part of it for us.”

On How He And Young’s Familiarity With OU Will Help

“Well, I just don’t think you’re going to be surprised by things, the atmosphere you’ve played in. You’ve been to Norman and you know what you’re going to get out of that part of it. You know, Coach Stoops and his whole staff, he’s got a bunch of new faces on it this year but some of those same ones are still there that probably still have the majority of the control of what’s going on as far as the calls and working against it, and so, you know, it is, I don’t know if comforting is the right word [but] we do have experience going against each other. I think that same thing holds true for them. You know, they’ve seen Bill, they’ve seen me, they’ve seen Brian, so I don’t think there’s going to be any shocking moments as you walk into the football game on either side."

On Utilizing Receivers

"We try to do that each and every week. We know guys are going to have opportunities to make plays so our job is to make sure that we’re spreading the ball around and taking what they give us.”

On Offense and Defense Contributing to Team’s Recent Success

“You know, I think it’s something we’ve talked about all the way through, from the start of spring ball throughout fall camp. Everybody’s got to do their job, and we’re relying on each other. And, you know, I think it’s really showed up in our first two ball games. We’ve won them differently and guys have played different schemes and had to do different things, and certain guys had to step up, so our team, I think is, is believing in each other, they’re believing in what we do and how we do it and that part of it is always the biggest hurdle anytime you’re starting with a new staff in a new program.”

On Offense Being Up To Standard

“We’re getting there. You know, I’m not big on all the stat part of it, I mean, it’s good for our guys and good for our program. You know, we didn’t do a very good job in the red zone the other night, and those are things we got to continue to work on. I thought Dane played really well at times and then we missed a couple things at times. We didn’t throw the deep ball as well as I wanted to last week. If we hit those, you know, it’s a totally different game a lot earlier. You know, in the run game, part of it, I thought our [running] backs did a good job of being patient. I thought, offensive line wise, those guys have really gelled and come together… I’m pleased [with] where we’re at; we still just got a lot of work to do.”

On The Run Game

“I’ve just been excited about the way our offensive line has taken that challenge each and every week. Those guys have done a good job. We’ve spent a lot of time on it. We work on it tremendously hard. Our [running] backs have been real patient. They’ve gotta continue to keep doing that, but I’ve been really pleased with where we are offensive line wise and the way they’ve attacked each and every game."

On Playing With A Chip 

“Our guys are going to be excited to play each and every week [and] they’re going to prepare that way each and every week. We’re fighting for respect in a lot of different areas. We’re fighting for respect across the country, we’re fighting for respect within our own conference, and we’re fighting for respect within our own state, and so anytime we gotta chance to go out and try to prove ourselves we’re going to take that opportunity.”