University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Southern Miss Postgame Quotes Versus Savannah State
9/10/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Southern Miss Head Coach Jay Hopson
On the first home win of the season ...
"I thought we played pretty well. Adversity hit early with a big turnover and after a nice stop; we really picked it up. It's always good to get the win in front of a home crowd, the guys played hard. Defensively and offensively we were able to run our whole receiving core. It is always good when you can get the whole team involved. We know we got a big test coming up next week, but we will enjoy tonight and this win."
On coming off a win ...
"The thing I am most proud of tonight is that we prepared hard this week and we were focused. I hope that is an indicator of a mature team."
On the running game...
"Both George [Payne] and Ito [Smith] ran the ball hard and that's something they did all summer and it carried over into the first two games. Ito is just a great athlete, he has great vision, is a competitor, is not only quick but is a powerful back for us. He may not be the biggest guy in the world but his power is tremendous and he plays hard every snap."
Southern Miss senior quarterback Nick Mullens
On the balance of the offense ...
"We have a lot of guys that are good enough to play and that creates a consistent competition at practice. Corey is good enough to play. Marquise is good enough to play. They all deserve playing time so its just a matter of who can compete in practice and elevate their game to become the guy. When you have that competition and brotherhood, it makes everybody better."
On Marquise Ricard ...
"It's awesome to see where he was to where he is now. He's a dependable receiver and we just have to keep working every day, every day. I think our trust is growing and that's definitely good to see."
On 91 unanswered points since Kentucky ...
"We just want to win. We're going to keep fighting. We're going to be tough. We're going to be nasty. We're going to embrace everything that Coach Hops preaches and just have to stay focused week by week and practice by practice and continue to get better."
Southern Miss junior running back Ito Smith
On the stadium-record longest run...
"I got the ball and I got tangled up with a linebacker. The offensive line did a great job blocking and once I broke the tackle, I went around the end and Isaiah Jones was blocking really well. He took out two guys for me so that was big."
On 100-yard mark with Payne ...
"We just tell each other before every game to go out there and ball. Leave everything out on the field."
On mentality going into the game and letting up ...
"It was how we upset at Kentucky and that could have been easily us this weekend getting the upset. We couldn't take them lightly. We just had to go out there and handle business and get the win."
On Troy's close loss to Clemson ...
"That says they're a great team and we just have to be on our A-game this week and we have to have a great week of preparation at practice."
Savannah State Head Coach Erik Raebum
Opening Statement ...
"Obviously they're much better than we are. We're not good enough upfront and can't block anybody. Until we start blocking somebody we're going to struggle to move the football. I'm disappointed, obviously. We've got a bye week, so we've got a lot of work to do. Hopefully we can get better and be more competitive in our conference play."
On Southern Miss ...
" I thought they were really good upfront, defensively. They're fast. It seemed like the only thing that Kentucky got was on communication breakdowns and busted assignments. In the second half, after they settled down, Kentucky couldn't move the ball against them either."
On what positives he saw from his team....
"Hopefully when we turn on the film we'll see something, but we got beat 56 to nothing so there's not a lot of positives you can draw from it. I don't think we turned the ball over, so that'd be a positive compared to the three times last week."
