Texas players preview Saturday’s big game against OU

On Monday, David Ash and his teammates previewed Saturday's Red River Rivalry game.

QB David Ash

On facing OU…
Well, you know, we learned a lot last year. We were growing as a team. We were still improving, and we were still young. We learned a lot, but I think this year it’s a whole new season, two new teams, and again, it’s going to be about preparation and execution. That’s what we’re going to do is try to prepare, and when we get to the game we’re going to try to execute.

On last year’s OU game…
It was definitely a big moment of being a freshman, but there was a lot of moments last year. The good thing about it is each one of those moments I’ll learn something. You know, I still have moments as a sophomore, and I’m just going to try to learn something. I think that’s what we do with our mistakes so there’s feedback.

On OU’s defense…
Well, they were good. But it’s a different team, and they’re still good. We’re just going to have to prepare for the one this year. You know, it’s a new defensive coordinator so it’ll probably be slightly different, but similar personnel. They’re always going to have players that can make plays.

DE Alex Okafor

On the rivalry…
To me it’s the best game in college football. This is why you come to Texas. This is why you want to be a Longhorn. To be able to play in this game, I think it’s every Longhorn fan’s dream.

On Landry Jones…
He’s just grasped the scheme so much better as he’s gotten older. The tempo is so much faster. He just makes his reads a lot quicker and he gets the ball out of his hands a lot quicker, and that’s going to be difficult for us, especially up front, that he’s so finetuned with the offense. It’s going to be a great challenge this week.

On a Landry comparison…
I mean, I wouldn’t compare him to Geno [Smith], but just mentally he knows his offense, kind of like Geno Smith did this past game. They know where to go. They know who’s going to be open and who he expects to be open. We’ve got to got to throw him off his rhythm a little bit.

CB Quandre Diggs

On using last year’s game as motivation…
It motivates us a lot. I still remember very clearly, it wasn’t a good day for us. It wasn’t the way we wanted to come out and play. But we have another chance this Saturday to go out, be prepared, be mentally prepared. We have guys that have played way more games than they played last year at this time. I feel like we’re confident. We should go in with a great game plan, and guys should be hyped just to go out and play OU.

On Landry Jones…
Landry is a great guy, too. He got the best of us last year. But he’s a great quarterback, and that’s the thing with this league. You’re going to play a great quarterback each and every week. We respect all those guys, and we just want to go out and do our job and hopefully slow those guys down. He just found the holes. He made all the right throws, and the balls were caught. That’s the thing about being a quarterback. It was his day. He had a great day, and we’ve just got to play him tighter this year, and hopefully the ball bounces our way.