Colorado-Kansas State Quotes
October 15, 2007 | Football
Colorado Head Coach Dan Hawkins
On the game “K-State did a great job. (They) outplayed us and outcoached us. I said before that I have a lot of respect on how (K-State head coach) Ron (Prince) runs his program. The kids play hard, they get physical, and they get after it. They did a great job, and they took it to us.” On if Colorado was playing conservatively “I definitely thought we were, particularly on defense. I think it's all kind of part of the plan. I think teams and individuals have to go through a little bit of a learning curve in a lot of respects. You don't just jump out and run in front of the pack without some lessons along the way. But I really thought we were playing not to lose initially, but we were having some calls that weren't necessarily getting executed right that were simple things. You know, I just think guys were very, very tight.” On when K-State took control “I thought they were pretty much in control the whole game. We were hanging in there a little bit, but they were doing a lot of things well. We had a couple of drives. We had a couple of drives going and made some plays. You know, they had a lot of success on offense. They were good on special teams. We were playing catch up for most of the game.” On Hugh Charles' game “He did a great job. He's been doing a good job, and we'll see if either of the backs have to help him with that, too. But we also need to be able to run the ball when we have to run the ball. There were times there that we didn't.” On going for it on fourth down before halftime “We were trying to gain some momentum. We went for it again in the third quarter and it didn't hurt us. They got three out of it, but they pretty much had the momentum from the get-go.” On Cody Hawkins' game “I think he was guessing a little bit. Obviously when it became a game where we have to throw and it's apparent that we have to throw every down, it's a combination of protection and him being comfortable enough back there to see things and see it right.” On handling K-State's 3-4 defense “I don't think that was a problem, no. Clearly he made some errant throws that he shouldn't have thrown, but I think it had more to do with the nature of the situation of trying to force plays. That's part of the mentality of being down a little bit and trying to force the issue. Then it also has to do with just the pressure aspect of it in terms of the rush.” On if K-State's special teams were as good as advertised “Yes, they didn't take one to the house, but they're solid. They do a good job. You can definitely tell they work on it.” Kansas State Head Coach Ron Prince
On the K-State rushing attack “I'm going to give a lot of credit to the coaches, this was a challenging week for us in a lot of different ways, a lot of different personal circumstances. Coach (James) Franklin and Coach (Tim) Tibesar did a great job putting the plan together and then the position coaches putting it into practice. I thought our coordinators did a really good job adjusting to what was a very difficult game for us. People are going to see the score and think this was an easy game. This was as challenging of a game as we've had and there were multiple adjustments that had to be made and we were on the front end of many of those. It was a great win for our team.” On adjusting to the Colorado running game in the second half “(Moving Marcus Watts closer to the line) was one of the things we talked about and a there were a number of other things in conjunction. The challenging part about this team is that they throw the ball deep so often. If you do too many things to come in there and stop Hugh Charles then they throw it over your heads. What we had tonight was we just never let him get to the perimeter which is where he really hurt Oklahoma. He scored touchdowns when he got to the perimeter against Oklahoma. Even though it was very frustrating and there were a lot of yards per carry, we just didn't want to over commit to that and then give up the big play over our heads for a score. That was frustrating because that's not exactly the defense we want to play but that's what was necessary today and everyone showed a lot of maturity in putting winning first to do that.” On the timeout before the half and holding Colorado to a field goal “There was a particular lineman, and fortunately being an offensive line coach for so long I could see what they were trying to do to us on the interior. They're very well coached and were giving us a little bit of a false key and what they were doing was providing a lot of openings in the middle. The adjustments we were trying to make at the time and the alignment we were trying to adjust didn't help us so we just called time out, made the adjustment, played in the alignment and I thought it helped. That's what you're supposed to do, you're supposed to put the kids in a position to win the game and make those adjustments for them. I thought the coaches did a good job of that. I just felt that phase of the game slipping away from us and we'd be negligent if we didn't do something about it.” On the pass defense and number of interceptions generated “(ESPN) asked me about (the interceptions) coming off the field today, and I said that's just because we can't sack the quarterback right now. If we could sack the quarterback there wouldn't be as many interceptions. We're not getting much pressure on the quarterback ? there at the end of the game we did. It was really frustrating in that standpoint, tackles for loss and sacks, we didn't get very much of that early in the game. Fortunately, whether its Chris Carney or (Justin) McKinney or (Marcus) Watts, whoever it is, we have a number of players back there that Coach (Greg) Burns and Coach (Tim) Tibesar have been working their brains out to do that and try to get those turnovers. We still haven't found a forced fumble yet. Those are things you've got to work on if you don't play good defense you're going to lose. I was frustrated as we all were that we had to give up so many yards to keep the points down tonight. We have to improve in that area but that's what was needed for us to be able to win.” On the K-State offense “I thought James Franklin did a really good job of conducting the game tonight, and it wasn't perfect. We put a lot on Josh (Freeman's) plate and he was operating much of the game at the line of scrimmage. I thought the big key was getting another big play to Jordy (Nelson) down the sideline; we were able to find that matchup for the second straight week. They weren't giving it to us very often and we had a hard time finding it. People just don't let you single cover that guy much anymore. We had to find some other ways. They forced us to run the football. We had some good plays for their cover two; we tried to pass it but they weren't as effective as we would have liked. We just had to be stubborn and really lean on the running game.” Colorado Players
QB Cody Hawkins GENERAL-“I think a lot of guys came in here expecting to win. I think we kind of forgot to keep clawing and scraping. You've got to earn each win, especially against a great team like K-State. You aren't going to have things handed to you. You go out and play and sometimes you know your assignment well. You just have to go out there and cut it loose rather than being concerned about so much of what they're doing. They are a great defense and our coaches came up with a great game plan. We had a lot of plays to make today. I think our guys played really hard. It was just in certain situations that we didn't do so well.” ON OFFENSE-“Our offensive line did an awesome job today. Against a defense like that, it's really tough because there's guys in different gaps, and especially when you have big linebackers like K-State has coming to fill gaps. It's definitely very tough. All our running backs were running awesome, they were running hard and they were hitting the holes. It was tough for me just because I wasn't making the plays that I needed to. Because we're running the ball well, that's going to open up the passing game, and it did. We just didn't capitalize on the plays, and that's my fault. GENERAL-“Mad, upset, disappointed and pretty much every negative feeling you can think of. They came out firing and we just couldn't do anything on either side of the ball. I don't know what it was, we just couldn't do anything.” ON JORDY NELSON AND DEON MURPHY-“They didn't do anything we hadn't seen. We knew Jordy (Nelson) was good and Murphy as well. We just didn't do what we did in practice.” ON RECOVERING FROM THE LOSS-“You just have to look at everything, take everything in. Personally, this game is one that I'll keep inside the whole season. This was really disappointing, really frustrating and really upsetting. This one is going to stay with us for awhile, but we are going to use it for future games.” ON THE LOSS-“We lost. It's that simple. They beat us in every phase of the game. They ran the ball very well, they threw the ball very well and played great on special teams. They just beat us.” ON KANSAS STATE-“They do a good job of getting their playmakers the ball. That was really impressive. You see it on film, and you see it in real life. They find many different ways to give their playmakers the ball, which is impressive as a defender because when you get inside the red zone they throw a lot of different formations, trick plays and it keeps you on your heels. They did a great job; they attacked us and we didn't attack them from the opening kick.” Kansas State Players
WR Jordy Nelson ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE WIN-“It was a real big win. Whenever you win it is a big game and this game will put us right back in the Big 12 hunt. In college football everyone is losing. You just have to stay in the hunt and come the end of the season hopefully we will find out where we are at and what we have to do. Right now we just have to take everything game-by-game and do our part and hopefully things will turn out well.” DE Ian Campbell ON K-STATE'S DEFENSE-“Right now I have to go watch the film to know exactly what happened. It is just about adjustments and making sure you get the win. Tonight we definitely we had a bend, don't break, mentality and that is not something we want to happen.” QB Josh Freeman
