Post Game Quotes
9/17/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 17, 2011
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Overall Statement...
"Good solid win tonight. We were much better in all three phases of the game. It was much more of a complete game for us. The biggest challenge going into the game was to make sure we took care of the ball. After having six turnovers last week, that was something that was emphasized throughout the week. We didn't have any fumbles, no interceptions, so I was proud of that fact. Defensively, we played well. We were on the field a lot - 53 plays I think is what I was told. That's a lot of plays and part of that, in one drive, we had four or five fourth downs is what I was told. Overall, the effort was very good and that was something we stressed. We wanted to play hard and play Southern Miss style football."
On the mentality of the team...
"No. (I didn't notice anything different). It started on Sunday night. The challenge was to give more energy in practice than we did week's before. Sunday night was better. Tuesday was better. And it was better on Thursday. When you practice like that, you're going to get those kinds of results on Saturday."
On the play of the lines...
"We played better on both sides. For the offensive line, I thought they played much better than they had because they moved on every snap. There was some type of blitz, some type of twist on every snap so those guys did a good job. That's why we did more zone blocking because of all the twisting and movement. For the most part, other than the one inside blitz that we missed and they got a 12 yard sack on, I thought we did a pretty good job."
On the performance of the running game...
"We need to (rush for a lot of yards) because we haven't run the ball effectively the last two weeks, not like we need to. We did in the first half at Marshall but not like we needed too."
On the play of Jamal Woodyard...
"There's a kid who's a redshirt freshman, really coming off a broken leg halfway through his senior year, so that's his first really meaningful game since that happened. I thought he responded really well. Last week he played extensively in the second half and I thought he did a nice job. Kid's going to get better every week."
On the defense matching up with SLU's tempo...
"I didn't ever feel like we got tempo'd to where we weren't ready to roll. I thought our guys did a pretty good job dealing with their tempo. They snapped it 97 times against Tulane so we said 'We've got to be ready to go. We've got to handle the tempo' and I thought we did that for the most part."
On Korey Williams' interception return...
"It was (a big play in the game). I think there were eight seconds left on the clock. He picks the ball and it probably took him 30 seconds to get to the endzone. I heard (linebackers coach Dave Duggan) upstairs yelling 'Go down! Go down!' I was like, 'It's wide open. Go for it.' Somehow he got in the endzone. He did a heck of a job with it. I felt like the receiver was going to catch him, and he did. But, he didn't get him down. That's probably the furthest he's ever run in his life. With the ball in his hands too, I can assure you."
On the game's influence for the rest of the season...
"I hope (it kickstarts us the rest of the way). That was the plan. To come out and play a more complete game and get ready for the next one. I still think there was some really good execution on offense, some good execution on defense and some good things on special teams. Like I told them in there, it's a win. Enjoy it. Be smart tonight and take care of each other but we're going to get working on the next one on Sunday."
On the Conference USA race...
"I never thought what happened at Marshall was going to be the death of us. It's an early game. If it's going to happen, you want it to happen early. We learned from it, hopefully, and we get better. I still believe we can accomplish all our goals and our team will too. Again, we're not going to jump that far ahead because Virginia is the next one and that's who we are going to focus on."
On cleaning up the special teams' play...
"Just like we do every week, on Sunday night we make all the corrections once we break down the film. It hasn't been a lack of talent or intensity or anything of those things. It's just been some mental breakdowns. Just some really bad mistakes. Just like tonight on the punt block team. Those were two very bad mental mistakes that you can't have because we put the defense right back on the field. We're still going to come after punts and we were sound in what we were doing but we made a mistake. We're sound in what we're doing but we'll correct those mistakes and get better in that unit also."
On the play of Kelvin Bolden...
"It was good to have Peanut back out there tonight. You're always nervous when a kid is coming back in off a concussion. You're worried that you may have rushed it but he got a clean bill of health. He tested out fine. He told me he felt fine so it was good for him to get back out on some live action before next week. I thought he had a pretty solid game."
On what he sees as the strength/identity of the team...
"I'm still searching. I don't know. I don't really know what our identity is yet. We're probably still developing that as a football team because this was just our first complete game. We've got to put some more together before we start talking about who we really are."
On the touchdown pass to tight end Collin Jarbo...
"We talked to all of them about visualizing themselves making a big play and I hope that's the play he had seen himself making. If you see those things enough, you can make them happen. We knew we were going to run four vertical, they had the middle of the field closed and he put it on them. He knew he was probably going to be the guy that was open. He makes that catch every day in practice. He's going to be a good player for us."
Southeastern Louisiana Head Coach Mike Lucas
Overall Statement...
"Southern Miss was really physical up front on both sides of the ball. When you look at our height and weight and their height and weight, we were going to have a hard time running the football. We had some holes but they closed up really quickly."
On the play of QB Nathan Stanley...
"He's done well. He's a very talented young man - he had to learn some things on the run. Our offense is pretty complicated, a lot of pre-snap reads and things like that, and he's picked it up well. (Both quarterbacks) are playing well right now."