Stoops & Barnett Quotes From Kansas City

Oklahoma Head Coach Bob Stoops
Opening statement...
"We are excited to be here again as a program and represent the South in the Big 12 Championship. As a program, we are really excited about the opportunity to play in a great venue. We appreciate everyone here in Kansas City. We are just really looking forward to challenge of tommorrow and playing an excellent Colorado team.

"Coach (Gary) Barnett and his staff have done a great job of fighting through the year as they have. For all that they've gone through as a program, to have themselves back in this position is a great compliment to them. We recognize Colorado as a great team. Not enough people have probably talked about this, but they have been in three of the last four Big 12 Championships as well.

Big 12 Championship Central | OU Conference Championships

"We recognize them as a strong program and we recognize that we have to play well tommorrow to have an opportunity to win. We are excited for the challenge and we feel like we've come in well prepared."

On the history of heavy favorites losing in past Big 12 Championships...
"(Our players) were here last year. I would say that they are very aware of that. It's not something that we need to harp on all week. They are smart young men and they understand that. They also understand that we've been in couple of others (Big 12 Championship games) that we've won."

On if hearing other scores from games around the country will have an effect on his team...
"I don't see us paying attention to it. It's not something that I'm going to pay attention to. I believe that our players aren't going to pay attention to it. The condition we come into this game at may allow us to feel that way, but we need to go out and take care of our business. What matters to us first is that we need to go out and win our game. We need to win the Big 12 Championship and that is all that is on our mind. That is all that we can control. Regardless of that score (SEC Championship) and what it comes out at, that is all we can do. I don't believe that it will change our mindset and the way we come in ready to play."

On the similarities between this season and the 2000 season...
"There are a lot of similarities to the way this season has been to the 2000 year and the run we were on. In 2000, the Big 12 Championship was in Kansas City. In both games if we won, we had the opportunity to go to the Orange Bowl and the National Championship. There are a lot of similarities that are there. It's something that really sets up with the similarities."

On if it makes it any more significant that it is at the Orange Bowl...
"The Orange Bowl is a great venue. It is a great bowl game. We have an incredible tradition in the Orange Bowl. If it was at the Fiesta Bowl or somewhere else, we would be just as excited. They all do a great job. The important thing is being a champion and that is what we are after."

On having two Heisman candidates (RB Adrian Peterson and QB Jason White) on his team...
"I do feel incredibly fortunate to have players that are great team guys, and as much as anything, that is probably not talked about enough with them and the team guys they are. They are unselfish and really don't care about how many throws or touches that anybody is getting. They just want to win and help complement the team. Our players have a great example in Jason White. Our best players through the years have been very unselfish and have been genuinely humble team guys. Just recently, Jason White being the Heisman trophy winner a year ago sets the example and everybody follows.

Colorado Head Coach Gary Barnett
Opening statement...
"It's great to be back here in this game. This is the third time in four years that we've had the opportunity to represent the North. There isn't a more exciting atmosphere in college football than playing in a league championship game. The only thing that compares to this game is the National Championship game, but no bowl or any other game can compare to this game and the excitement and atmosphere of the people in the stands and everybody around it.

"I told our football players that they will play in a lot of games, but they will never find more exciting atmosphere than this one. It's been that way, I know for the three games that I've had a chance to be apart of. The Big 12 does a great job. I would say that I have been a guy that has been in favor of this game all along, whether I'm in it or not in it, or whether I win it or lose it, I think it's great for the Big 12, I think it's a great exposer, and I think it helps lean toward the playoff atmosphere that everyone seems to want anyway.

"Our team is excited to be here, we are humble to be here, and we are also confident to be here. We've played our best football at the end of the year. That was our goal. We have been fortunate to win the last three (games). Oklahoma has won the last 11 (games), and that's pretty good too. We will take the last three, and come off a game that we just played a week ago in Lincoln. I like the fact that we haven't had two weeks off, and I like that fact that we are coming off a successful road game.

"Our team is very young. Forty-nine of the 70 players we brought are either freshmen or sophomores, but they have played very maturely this year. The way to separate out the things that are important to the things that aren't important is usually a trait that is only acquired by a veteran team. I really give credit to our coaches and the few seniors that have really taken control in the locker room and lead this team through the ups and downs of a college football season and we now find ourselves here at Arrowhead Stadium playing for the Big 12 Championship. We are very appreciative of our opportunity, and we are very glad to be here."

On the Associated Press Big 12 Coach of the Year award...
"This isn't about me, and the Coach of the Year honor really isn't about me either. The Coach of the Year honor is about our program, our players, our coaches and their wives, and our staff members. I accepted that award on their behalf. We are here because of the football season. We aren't here for any other reason. We are here because we have a team that is excited about playing football, they truly appreciate playing the game and being apart of college football, and they never take one minute of it for granted. That is why we are where we are right now."

On the positives that came out of the mid-season loss to Texas...
"The positives that came out of it was that it forced us to refocus and forced us to sit down and redo our goals and to get back and realize that everything that we talked about doing in August we can still do. We didn't even watch the film of the Texas game with our players. We went to the next game because it would do us no good to watch that game. We only wanted to look ahead. If there was a positive that came out of it, it was a refocus by our players, and a realignment of where we really wanted to go."

On last year's Oklahoma team and the play of RB Adrian Peterson...
"Last year, I think most of us will look at Oklahoma and feel like they were a one-dimensional offense. They had a great quarterback in (Jason) White that won the Heisman Trophy. We devised a game plan a year ago when we played them and we came up with a pretty good blitz package and a way to put pressure on him. The reason we could do that is because they didn't have Adrian Peterson at that time. Adrian Peterson takes you out of that mode. He makes you become a really sound, fundamental, basic football team. If you are taking any chances, they better be thought out. That's what he does to you. He forces you to be sound and fundamental. You better be good and sound at every position, because they can beat you anywhere. To me, he takes a lot of heat off Jason White. Jason White probably has the ultimate quarterback role in the country. He has Adrian Peterson to hand the ball off to, and he's got great receivers to throw it to and a heck of a good group in front of him to protect both of them. He's right where every quarterback wants to be."

Big 12 Commissioner Kevin Weiberg
On determining price range of tickets...
"Clearly these tickets are premium tickets because it is a championship event and we price accordingly. We've always had great demand for these tickets. Those ticket prices are approved by our athletic directors. They are the primary group that interacts with us to determine ticket prices. Of course, we work with our host entity the Kansas City Chiefs organization that helps with the marketing of the tickets and the Kansas City Sports Commission folks with determining those prices. We look at that every year and we try to take into consideration the circumstances that surround the game and what our expectations are. That is kind of the process that we go through. We hope to have the prices for next year established fairly soon so that Houston can begin its marketing effort."

On if the attendance will have an effect on prices in the future...
"We take into consideration every year. I don't know one year in which we've had a very unique race that's going to necessarily impact how we think about the demand for tickets."

On if the declining attendance number will make him re-evaluate having a conference championship...
"It really isn't (part of the equation) right now. The format that we have is one that we like. Obviously, from time to time, we get questions from our membership whether we should think about alternatives. It has had more to do with the competitive consequences of the game that it has with the public demand for the tickets or the interest that is out there, generally. I thought we did very well last year in Kansas City selling tickets. I think the game is very sensitive to the flow of the season and the match-up that we have, particularly when you're moving the game from city to city over time. Obviously, if we had a real struggle marketing tickets on a year-to-year basis, I'm sure we would have to look at it and discuss it. I wouldn't want to over-react to a single year."

On tickets being returned by Iowa State...
"I don't know for sure on that matter, but I do know that we felt pretty confident that we would have had a very significant amount of interest in the remaining tickets had a team like Iowa State emerged to the championship game. I've heard anecdotally that there were blocks of several hundred rooms that had already been acquired by Iowa State fans that they had to turn around and release. I do know that there was an expectation there, and that expectation obviously fell through and shuffled some plans."

On the BCS...
"There has definitely been a high level of criticism directed at the BCS structure. Certainly that has been a constant theme of many of you in the media in terms of questioning whether the system works. There's no doubt that there is a lot of criticism that is already out there. Everyone has to understand the system really started the year with only two slots in the championship game and we knew going into the year that those slots were going to be determined by the final BCS standings and the teams that are one and two in the standings were going to be the two teams that were going to play. Even at the outset of the year we knew it was going to be possible that there could be more than two unbeatens, or there could be multiple teams with one loss at the end of the season. This is not a scenario that was not somehow perceived as possible to occur."

On if it's disheartening to hear the criticism of the BCS after making all the changes...
"It does point out that whatever adjustments are made to the system there's going to likely to be some ongoing concern and criticism of it. It is true that I think the moves were made to simplify the poll structure; to put more of a decision-making in the hands of the human voters was the right thing to do. Much of the difficulty that we have had in our attempts to get the No.1 and No. 2 teams together have related to late season upsets and the inability of the computers in the system and the weight that they had in the system to really recognize those situations at the end of the season. Those computer formulas and the separate strength of schedule formulas and the quality wins were more computer driven were really insensitive to when wins and losses might occur. I think it was correct to get more control in the hands of human voters. I understand that brings with it more pressure relative to the voting process, but I can tell you that it exists in most processes. I served on the NCAA Basketball Committee for three years and I know that's perhaps different from this system, but I used to receive a lot of e-mail from fans and information from schools that were trying to lobby me and influence how I might try to vote as part of the basketball process. That's going to exist in most any process of this kind and I really personally believe it would even exist around a playoff structure in some way shape or form."

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Stoops & Barnett Quotes From Kansas City

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