Highlights from Gary Pinkel’s Big 12 teleconference this morning:

On his defense: “We held (Nevada) to about 120 yards in the second half and substituted quite a bit to get some younger players in. We made a lot of progress. We gave up one big play at end of first half but came back with a shutout in the second. It’s a work in progress, trying to get better.”

On this week’s opponent, Buffalo: “I’m very familiar with Buffalo. My mom and dad lived there. Up until I was 25, I waas there all the time. A great city. My dad was born there and my grandmother lived on Vermont Street. The university having a great year. The win last week (over Temple) and a couple of weeks before (over UTEP) and they played Pitt very tough. They are a very experienced offensive team, most of starters back. I like to see how their quarterback (Drew Willy) plays. He is very smart; you can see he is very well coached. Defensively, the have a great pressure package.”

On running a fake field goal against Nevada: “Whether it worked or not, those fakes lend themselves to helping you as the season goes on. It was good for opponents to see that. Everybody that plays you says ‘hey, they’re gonna run a fake,’ we better not do that in our rush. You design them for everyone we see. I will do it if we think we’re in position it’s going to work It presented itself situation wise (against Nevada), so we did it.”

On Danario Alexander’s return: “I think he did pretty good, about 35 plays, that was our goal. When you go through something like that (return from an ACL), there’s a confidence factor you have to have. Every time you pass one on the field, take a hit, make a spin, your confidence level grows. He was disappointed after the game and said he didn’t do well. But he’ll get better each week. When he gets his confidence back, we’ll see the player we saw at the end of last year.”

A few other highlights from the Big 12 coaches teleconference this morning:

Kansas coach Mark Mangino on his team’s loss on Friday to South Florida: “We’ll get through it and be better for it.”

Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops on being ranked No. 2 early in the year: “It’s a long year, you can only focus on each week. It doesn’t do anything for us right now because we’ve got so many more games to play. You have to focus on earning it each week and not get ahead of yourself.”

Stoops on playing easier non-confernce schedules vs. tougher games: “It’s a flaw in the system. Everybody gives you credit now for playing a tough game but if you lose, come the end of the season everybody seems to be ranked by number of losses.”