Quotes: Southern Miss vs. ULM

USM vs. ULM Postgame Quotes
Sept. 8, 2018

Southern Miss head coach Jay Hopson

On running game
"Yeah, we didn't run the ball well, ain't no doubt about it. That's about an accurate of statement as you can. Again, we gotta be better than that. The bottomline is that they stuffed our run game and it's something as coaches and players that we better come to work next week. We better get better there for sure."

On Jack Abraham's turnovers
"It's alway a combination. He's starting to have his best game and offensively he got hit from behind. He got sacked a couple times and the bottomline is it's never one mans fault. The quarterback always gets too much of the glory and too much of the blame. The statistics don't look that bad, but we struggled offensively. There was a pass interference that I still need to see somebody hit somebody and there was another big gainer on a nice perimeter block that called back that put us on the eight-yard line and I'll watch fill, but just from the naked eye I thought those were two pretty good plays by our offense. Those are two plays that if we get down there an get a field goal or touchdown, then we win the ball game."

On his message to offense before final drive
"What we did was we had a minute and thirty, we still had plenty of time because we saved all three timeouts, so we got the ball on the forty-five with about twenty-three seconds to go. We had two timeouts for sure, but we were probably going to get three or four plays from there. Parker, we're talking about a fifty-yard range, so he boomed the fifty-three and missed it, but he was ten yards beyond the goal post. We felt that if we got it down to the 25-yard line, then we could give him a chance to get in there and kick the game-winner."

Sophomore wide receiver Jaylond Adams

On what was working
"I just came out and played hard for my brothers. Coach always says to play hard and good things will happen. I just came out and played as hard as I could play."

On matchups
"Anytime a team gives us one-on-one, we feel like we have to take advantage of one-on-one matchups. That was the biggest thing tonight, coming out and taking advantage of when we have one-on-one. That's what I tried to do to the best of my ability."

On the last interception
"I wanted the ball back even though he intercepted it. I wanted to try and get the ball back and make something out of nothing. I wanted to try to at least knock the ball back and get the ball back in our possession."

On what ULM did defensively
"From my perspective, they gave us a lot of one-on-one matchups, a lot of couple three, couple one and when we got that, then we just tried to take advantage."

Sophomore quarterback Jack Abraham

On facing the defense
"They were bringing blitzes and kind of in odd situations. Got caught off guard sometimes but they played a good game.

On the run game
The running game is something we’ve got to work on. We’ve got to come back Monday and focus on getting the running game down. It’s hats off to them, they beat us up front and that’s just the bottom line. We’ve got to improve, we’ve got to get better.

On his last throw
"I saw the linebacker blitz to the side and then the guy that picked it off kind of floated into that area. I tried throwing it quick, but he had me and made a good play. If I could take it back I would but it is what it is. We’ve just got to move on and play the next play."

On what was working during the game
"Our perimeter stuff was good; getting the ball on the perimeter with Jaylond, De’Michael, Quez. Our downfield throwing was good too once we had time. We had a good couple plays down the field with Tez and Quez and Jaylond. We made too many mental mistakes and shot ourselves in the foot too much. We can’t do that and that’s the bottom line. On my part, on the o-line’s part, everybody on the team…they are mental mistakes we can’t have. I take full blame for it, I’ve got to push those guys harder. We’ll come back next week and do better."

On turnovers
It’s all mental, you’ve got to put it behind you. There’s nothing I can do about it now, I can’t go back and rewind that play and do it again; it’s all mental. You’ve got to flush it out and move on for the next opponent.

On the fumbles
I’ve got to work on ball security, sometimes football is just a funny game. It lands a funny way sometimes. We’re going to work on the little things a lot this week in practice and make sure stuff like that doesn’t happen.

On the coaches' message
"We went out there and made too many mental mistakes. We didn’t execute to the top of our ability and when we do that it’s not going to put us in the right position to win the ball game so there’s nothing we can do about it. We’ve got to move on and focus on Appalachian State now."

ULM head coach Matt Viator

On defense
"We just kept playing hard and that's the thing I really like about it. We got some turnovers on defense and had the fourth-and-one, or whatever it was, but we made a big stand. I can't say enough about our defense and the way we played."

On Southern Miss' early score
"We kinda settled in and turned around. We punted them deep and got the touchdown, which I thought was really big. To score on defense, I thought that was big and we gotta go back to work, but it for sure feels good to win. I'm happy for our defensive players and coaches to come in here in this kind of environment and to leave the field. How to do you play much better than that against a team thats obviously got a lot of weapons."

On Cortez Sisco
"It was a huge play and I didn't want to get a penalty, but I wanted to run out there and tackle him myself. I was screaming for him to get down on the ground, but your natural instinct is to run with it. But what a great play he made. He couldn't get down on the ground fast enough for me."

University of Southern Mississippi Athletics

Quotes: Southern Miss vs. ULM