Tulsa Coach Blankenship on effect of UTSA loss on recruits

[Harry]

Opening statement

HEAD COACH Bill Blankenship: All right. I guess first of all, I wish to apologize to our homecoming fans and the folks that have been a part of this, because we surely did not represent Tulsa football very well today.

Q. This is obviously a big recruiting time. How do recruits look at this? Do they shake their head and walk out early or do they say they can play for this team? Is this a good thing?

HEAD COACH Bill Blankenship: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. That's certainly a challenge for us right now. Hopefully they can see us in the worst of times and see if they want to be a part of it.

Q. I'm curious, on recruiting, with that many guys here, can you even what's your mindset afterwards about that, like an opportunity lost?

HEAD COACH Bill Blankenship: It's a huge opportunity lost. We had a lot of opportunity with potential recruits to try to continue to make good impressions. You really don't want to live on, "We need you to turn this thing around." That's not really the way you want to recruit. You'd rather recruit to your strength. And what we'll continue to do is hope and work on those guys experiencing what we are, who we are, a look at the facts of who's out there and who's not. And see for yourself.

Q. Recruiting is a 16 month process. You don't win or lose a guy on the basis of one outcome, do you, though?

HEAD COACH Bill Blankenship: Hopefully not. I think what you do is you have to understand this was a bad experience. And so what you do in reality with your players and parents and everybody that's here, fans and all, you get to see us at our worst. This is it, warts and all. But now you can decide if this is where you want to be.

Read more: http://www.tulsahurricane.com/sports/m-footbl/recaps/110213aal.html