Post Game Quotes from Football Win Over Tulane
11/6/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 6, 2010
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SOUTHERN MISS QUOTES
HEAD COACH Larry Fedora
"It was a good, ugly win, I can tell you that. It was not pretty by any means, but I'm happy to have the win. Give Tulane and Bob Toledo credit. He is doing a heck of a job down here and they have gotten better and better each and every year. They play tough and they made plays and we continued to shoot ourselves in the foot for another week in a row. We have got to execute better than we are executing right now."
On becoming bowl eligible…
"It's obviously a big thing. We expect to go to bowls at Southern Miss but I'm happy we got the win and we get to go play
UCF this week."
Penalties on defense…
"We were back to nine penalties in this game. Pass Interference calls, we have a personal foul, it's disappointing that we are back to not playing smart football."
Tulane first drive of second half…
"Any drive which they take the ball down and score bothers me. I was concerned that we weren't stopping the run but eventually we got a little better at doing that. But we made the plays we had to make to win this football game and that's what was important."
On special teams…
"That was the game for us. We won the game in special teams, there is no doubt about it. The kickoff return team made it happen, they were consistently getting us the ball at midfield. Punt Team was going down there and causing turnovers and the kickoff team was hammering their guys. We got the onside kick early in the game. There was no doubt that special teams won this game for us."
WR Quentin Pierce
On his touchdown pass…
"I'm glad coach called it for me so I could get a chance to throw it. I just wanted to get it out of my hands because I saw him come open, and it worked."
On the team's performance…
"We came out kind of sloppy. I don't really know why. Coach Fedora said all week that the atmosphere was not going to be anything and that we needed to focus but we came out sloppy and flat."
On becoming bowl eligible…
"It is nice to get that out of the way but we have to continue to get better every day and every week."
TULANE QUOTES
HEAD COACH BOB TOLEDO
Opening Statement
"The biggest thing is that our special teams were disastrous. I can't think of another word except for that we were disastrous. It was such a poor performance on so many peoples' part, special teams wise. That kind of did us in, in itself: it gave us a horrible field position, they had 2 four-yard drives for touchdowns, we missed the extra point, we got hit on the on-side kick, lost that, and lost a player, we dropped a punt inside our ten, bad kick-off returns, bad kick-offs. Just horrible special teams performance, number one. Number two, I thought our receivers dropped way too many fumbles. We had opportunities and they did not perform up to expectations. We said tonight that you had to give your very best effort and I hope that's not their very best effort, because it's not very good. I thought our defense for the most part played well. That's a good football team and we gave them opportunities with field position, and that last touchdown, there's no way that should have happened. And offensively, I thought we ran the ball well, we did some good things: we had 28 first downs; we had more yardage than they did. Darkwa played extremely well: he had 147 yards rushing. We held them down pretty good. If you look at the stats, we hung with them. It was those things I talked about that were the deciding factor in the game: poor special teams play and dropped balls did us in."
On Dropped Balls in the Fourth Quarter
"It would have been a first down, and we dropped the ball. That was just one of many dropped balls in the game. Losing Robottom hurt us; losing Kemp obviously hurt us, too. But our receivers are supposed to catch passes; that's their job, to catch balls, and they didn't do a very good job."
On Injury Updates
"Joe Kemp has a concussion, and I don't know how long that will be, you know how concussions are. Casey Robottom has a pulled hamstring. We'll have to evaluate them later but we lost them both in the first half."
On Poor Play in Fourth Quarter
"It's called learning how to win, and players making plays. That's the name of the game: players make plays. Their players made some plays and our guys didn't."
On the Safety in the Fourth Quarter
"He said that just as he was getting ready to throw he got hit. And he said that he felt his arm moving forward, but there was a fumble, so it went out of the side of the end zone. Protection wasn't very good, let's put it that way. He held the ball a little bit, we were trying to get a wheel route up the sideline and make a big play, and he held the ball just a little too long and he got hit and fumbled it."
On the Passing Game
"I saw us do a lot of good things. Like I said, we had 402 yards against a very good football team. We had pretty good balance: we ran the ball extremely well, we threw the ball extremely well, we scored 30 points. But, again, our special teams put us in a huge hole and put too much pressure on the defense. Then the dropped balls did us in. That's the story of the game. Period."
On the Back-Ups on Special Teams
"We had a few guys banged up. You have to get out and play. They want to play, they want an opportunity, then they've got to make plays. I can't emphasis enough how poor it was and it's not because we don't work on it. Very poor execution."
On Orleans Darkwa
"I think he's a heck of a player. I thought Payten ran well too, but he's just a great player. He's one of the best freshmen running backs in this conference and maybe in the country. He's pretty special. He does a lot of good things. The Southern Miss coach said we're a different football team than we've been in the past, that we're a lot more competitive, but we just haven't taken the next step."
On The Team's Record
"You lose, you lose. But we're losing closer now. It's getting to that point where we're still losing some games but we just played a team that should be 7-1. They lost by 1 point to two teams. They should be 8-1 right now. That's a great football team, with a lot of talent, and we played them toe to toe for the most part."
On The Team's Improvement since Last Year
"We're still missing a few pieces to the puzzle, that's called recruiting. You can only get so many guys at a time. It's just taking us time. We were so far down when I started, and we've progressed steadily, we just haven't turned the corner yet. It's a little better; it's having a few more players. We need more guys who can score touchdowns; we need more guys who can makes plays. We didn't make a bunch of plays tonight."
LB Trent Mackey
On the Defensive effort against Southern Miss
"We talked all weekend about being relentless and running at the ball, pursuing the ball carrier. That's what we did tonight and we did a pretty good job of limiting their offense and not giving up many explosives. The only time we really got burned was on the wide receiver pass, we were in man coverage and they got behind us. We are going to get back to the drawing board and look at what mistakes we made tonight and get them fixed for next week."
On preparing for Rice
"We just need to get in the film room. Get back to work with coach Stanard and our position coaches to go out and execute our defensive scheme. We need to go out and play four quarters of football."
RB Orleans Darkwa
On a solid effort versus Southern Miss
"I feel like we played with a lot of physicality today. Our offensive line and tight ends were really pushing them off the ball and they blocked really well. Once again, we just need to learn how to finish."
On the frustrations of losing close games
"It is very frustrating. You might not see it on my face, because I am not going around throwing things or getting angry, but I am very frustrated. Coach Dodd told us to get over this one tonight and tomorrow and then go to work on Monday and get ready for Rice.
On preparing for Rice
"We just need to play for four quarters. We have to make sure that if we get a lead, we finish (the game) off strong. We are going to go play a physical ball game for four quarters and try to come out with a win."
QB Ryan Griffin
On running back Orleans Darkwa
"He has been great this season. When he is in the game, I have all the confidence in the world in him. I feel like everything is going to be fine. If it is a blown up play, you always feel like he can make something out of it. You don't have to play tight or worry about what's going to happen all the time. You just relax and play when Orleans is back there.
On Casey Robottom
"It was tough once Casey went down and, man, I really wish he hadn't gone down. (Southern Miss) was doing a good job in coverage, double covering him a lot, and he just kept finding ways to make catches."
About what has to happen next week versus Rice
"We have to make a statement next week. We played two okay games in the first half the past two weeks and now we just need to finish."