Media Day Player Quotes

Corey McKeon
Junior, Linebacker
On if he’s ready to get this season going
"Yes sir. I’m waiting, relaxing. Now it’s time to get down to work as they say."

On getting to the Big 12 Championship Game
"That’s a long ways away. We have a lot of games to play and a lot of work to do this summer. We’re going to define our roles now and we’re going to have to worry about the Big 12 Championship Game when we get to it. Game-by-game. All week we have to take it game-by-game. People picking us to be the favorites doesn’t matter. Before we even get to the conference (games) we have three big teams to beat."

On how much looser the team is now with the new coaches
"A lot. It’s the same story with a lot of coaches. When you’re winning everyone is happy and when you’re losing no one is happy. Coming off the streak we came off of at the end of last season, I’m sure everyone talks about that. There’s been a lot of smiles but a lot of the smiles are fading when we realize it’s 102 degrees outside and we’re about to practice. It’s momentum is what that is. It’s carrying over from last season. Everyone has their feet in the dirt for a change. Everyone knows what’s going on. It’s different now. Last year there were a lot of guys confused adjusting to the system. Now that’s all been done. We can base things off personalities and things like that instead of being ?okay, it’s all business.’ Now the business part is taken care of and it’s more of the relationship part."

On how fragile the three-game winning streak to end last season is and higher goals
"We’re passed it. Talking about that, the momentum and everything, everyone is passed that. Everyone’s ready to get to work. Everyone is excited to start practice just to see how good our team can actually be. We’ve got the talent. We’ve got everything. We’re just excited to see how we turn out. Everyone’s working hard. For a change, people aren’t like ?oh man, we have to practice.’ People are like, ?we get to practice because we want to be better and see how good we can be.’ Momentum is over. Two-a-days kills momentum."

On what having Stewart Bradley alongside is like
"I don’t know, he’s kind of a distraction, a hassle. He’s a nice guy. I love him. It’s fun. Stew’s a great player and he’s enthusiastic. He helps bring a little understanding to our defense. It’s fun having him out there. When the summer heat hits you and you have to think how bad you have it, then you have to look at Stew and see his long hair and realize how much he’s sweating."

On his expectations for the defense
"We could set our expectations as high as we want because we have the talent. We have the guys to do so. We have the coaching, everything. It’s just the fact of going out and doing it. We could say ?oh we’re going to be the best defense in the world, ever.’ Well I guess I did say that. But unless you go out and put the work in and do it there isn’t a point. That’s the great thing about our defense. We’re talented. We’ve got the size. We’ve got the speed. Now we have the determination. We have the want and the will. I think that’s the most dangerous thing about our defense. We want to be the best. We want to go out and do all that."

On Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar's situation
"Any news like that you hear about is famous. It happens with the most popular player and the lowest player. It’s unfortunate what happened to him to slip up and make a mistake. Everyone makes them but at the same time it’s a big hurt to their team and it opens up a lot of eyes across the country. It would have been great to play against him and their squad full-strength. Seeing that with him being such a great player is very unfortunate."

On if a situation like Bomar’s is more likely to happen
"You never think about it. We get the three-hour meetings about it saying you can’t gamble, you can’t do all this and all that. But it just takes a small conversation with someone to be able to break a rule like that. I don’t know about Rhett Bomar’s situation, but I’m sure he didn’t think anything was going wrong. I don’t know how much money he got but I hope it was a lot for sitting out a year. It’s unfortunate but you don’t realize that stuff until it happens to you."

On the linebackers
"We had a meeting today and Coach Cosgrove said it best. He said we’re supposed to be one of the best corps and we’ve got everything. Now we become a tighter group. We’ve got the players. We’ve got the depth. I name every single linebacker to come on the field and be able to contribute. The thing is it’s time to be a tight group. We have to take a hold of the defense. The D-line is strong. The safeties are strong. The corners are strong. It’s up to the linebackers to lead. It’s up to us to be the coaches on the field. And that’s what we’re going to do. With the corp we have there are no excuses for slip ups or for not getting things done. We should be able to get it done and we have to learn to push each other. Take a little load off the coaches. Let them do the coaching and let us self-govern ourselves."