PRESS CONFERENCE: Kilgore coach Clint Fuller

EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s a transcript of Kilgore High School coach Clint Fuller from Friday afternoon, following Kilgore’s loss to Celina in the University Interscholastic League’s Class 4A, Division I State Championship Game, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Opening statement (after asked his thoughts by a UIL host):

FULLER: You know, I just think Celina did exactly what we wanted to do: they came out, and put pressure on us early. We gave up some big plays defensively. Offense came out and played well to start the game, but you know, one mistake led to another, and in games like this, it can snowball on you in a hurry, and that’s kind of what happened. It wasn’t our best night. Hat’s off to Celina. They’re a great football team. They played great tonight. It just didn’t go our way.

We thought if we could shore things up defensively and get our offense going, we could get back in it, but again, games like this, momentum has a tendency to swing on you, and swing on you hard, and that’s kind of what happened in the second half.

QUESTION: Eight consecutive scoring drives that Celina had; was there anything you guys were trying to do to shake it up, to try to slow that down early, to try and disrupt it?

FULLER: Yeah, absolutely. You know, we moved personnel around. I think we ran about four different fronts, adjusted our front seven three or four different times, and it goes back to our secondary, to be honest with you. We were missing one back there and we were trying to adjust on the fly, and that affects our front seven and… what fronts we could play. And so we were just trying to play catch-up after the first couple of drives. I mean, I told our coaches before we came into this game: we ain’t gonna leave any bullets in the chamber. We certainly didn’t do that defensively. They were also helped out by some really good field position. So, that’s tough to stop a good offense when they’re working with a short field.

QUESTION: Coach Fuller, not the ending you wanted, but 13 wins, back to state, first since 2013 – how do you sum up this year for your program and what these guys did to get you here?

FULLER: It’s gonna be a little bit hard for me to sum up the year right now. Obviously, devastated. But what I can tell you is that I couldn’t be prouder of our kids, whether we won this game, or lost this game. They’re a great group of kids. They’ve worked. You know, I watch them every day. People typically see them on Friday nights, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. They’ve been working since last December, through the offseason, early mornings, summer strength and conditioning – our kids work as hard as anybody in the state of Texas. For it to come together during the season and for them to work so hard, and be able to realize our goals, it’s special, and it means a ton to me because they deserve it. They deserve it. They’re a special group of young men. We’re gonna pick ourselves up, and we’ll be able to look back and appreciate the season and the time we had together.

QUESTION: Along those same lines, can you talk about the senior class? I know it’s hard to do that right now, but I know they’re a special class to you.

FULLER: Absolutely. I can’t say enough about our senior class, really any of them: our junior class, or sophomore class…any of them. It’s a great group, specifically our seniors. They’ve set a standard within our program, not just athletically, and that’s the least of it. By character, by the way they handle themselves, by the way they work, by the way they prepare, by they way they walk the halls, by the way they carry themselves throughout our community. I’m just very grateful for our senior class. We’re gonna reap the benefits of what they’ve done during their time in our program for a long time.

QUESTION: It’s hard to reach this stage. After 11 years, y’all were back. How do you build on this going into next year, and what does this season mean to this program, even given the way it ended?

FULLER: Well, you know, there’s no substitute for experience in football. This year, coming into the season, we had a new quarterback. He’s going to be a really good player, but you’ve got to put them in the fire. Same thing with the state championship. You get there, and the kids understand what it is, but it’s a different animal. You walk into AT&T Stadium – a lot of these kids have never been here. The adrenaline, the field’s far different, you’re playing in a big game, which our program’s used to that. But the experience will pay huge dividends for us down the road. Our goal wasn’t to get here once. We want to have one of the top programs in the state, year-in and year-out, and this experience will help build that for our kids.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)…What was your message to the team, as you were facing that quarterback (Bowe Bentley)?

FULLER: He’s a great player. I’m a defensive guy. I think I’m pretty good at what I do. But you’ve got to tip your hat to the kid. I mean, he’s got it all. He scares you running the ball; he can sit there and scramble around, and can make plays with his feet; he can make the throws, sit there in the pocket and throw it, scramble out of the pocket and throw it: he’s a great player. I have all the confidence in the world in our defense, and we just didn’t play well. We didn’t cover well, which really, when you can’t cover, it really puts a lot of stress on our defense, especially in the running game. But at the end of the day, you’ve gotta tip your hat to that kid, and those coaches over there for Celina. They did a great job. They were able to get the momentum early in the game, and we were never really able to recover from that.

QUESTION: There at the end, you were able to gather your players… during the trophy presentation. What did you say to them in that moment, to take away?

FULLER: I just told them… I actually gathered them up at the end of the third quarter, and said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna fight. We’re gonna keep fighting. We’re gonna fight for each other and that’s what we talked about all week. This wasn’t about state championships, wasn’t about playing Celina, wasn’t about playing at AT&T. It was about us playing together, as a team, one last time, unified, fighting for each other with love, and commitment. I told them at the end of the third quarter, ‘Guys, we’re gonna keep fighting. I don’t care about the scoreboard. We’re gonna keep fighting and have each other’s backs.’ And then they did that. We got the stop defensively, we score one offensively, and after the game, we’re all disappointed – we’ve all put a lot into this. But they’ve got no reason to hold their heads down. I know it hurts. But I couldn’t be prouder of ‘em. I couldn’t be more proud of a group of kids, whether we won it or not. Proud of our community for their support, and we’ll keep moving forward. We’ll learn from it, and we’ll grow from it.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)…What was the difference in the play-calling?

FULLER: There wasn’t any difference in the play-calling. It was big plays. Now, I will say, they present some issues offensively with their ability to run the ball, and they definitely stretch you. Do you load the box, and stop the run? Or do you soften the box and take care of the pass? They do stretch you on that. But more than anything, we’ve played really good offenses, whether it be Carthage and Gilmer, and we’ve been able to play our style of defense. We gave up some big plays early. And that was really a jolt. We haven’t really given up many big plays defensively to an offense, and it was just hard to recover after that, and like I said earlier, it snowballs on you. That kind of offense, when they grab momentum, they’re already a challenge. They become a much bigger challenge to stop.

QUESTION: You mentioned their running game: how much does the quarterback, Bowe Bentley, being able to run, and …. scramble, affect that?

FULLER: A lot. I’ve spent a lot of sleepless hours this week worrying about that. They don’t just run it. It’s gonna be in a critical situation on a third down, or fourth down and short… they can at least match you person for person in the run game, as far as a hat on a hat, and then you’ve gotta – there’s no way you can gain a hat defensively, unless you over-shift and then you’re soft on the other side. And so you’ve gotta win. You’ve got to be able to get off a block and you’ve gotta be able to have pursuit coming. I think what makes them so dangerous is that they can… obviously they can run the ball. …And then you’ve got to worry about the run in critical situations.

QUESTION: You had an inexperienced quarterback coming into the season. …How much have you seen this team grow, and how much confidence did you have coming off that win against Carthage that you could reach this level?

FULLER: I was confident before we played Carthage, because, like I said, people see what they see on Friday night. We see it every day. Our kids work every day, five days a week, 365 days a year. But Kayson (Brooks) coming in… there’s no substitute for experience, but I knew he’d be a great quarterback for us. He’s a very quick learner. He did exceed my expectations with his rapid development. It happened a lot quicker than I would have thought, and the same thing with our offensive line. They developed. They were very inexperienced starting the year, and at both of those positions, they took off, and it really helped our team. And I knew they would, I just didn’t know what the time-table would be.