Colorado-West Virginia Quotes
September 18, 2008 | Football
Colorado Head Coach Dan Hawkins
General
That was unbelievable and a great thing to be a part of right there. The longer the game went on, the better I felt our chances were, I really think the character of our guys and conditioning and what we're doing is really showing up and that's an awesome thing to see. I thought the defense played really, really well.
On Rodney Stewart's Performance
“You have seen the glimpses of him, you knew that was coming.That's the stuff we keep talking about; you never know when those freshman are going to grow up, you know it's going to happen sometime because they have too much talent not to. The exciting thing was that he didn't turn the ball over. He did a great job, he made some great runs and he ran hard. The awesome thing is that we have Darrell (Scott), Demetrius (Sumler), and we have Kevin Moyd. Kevin Moyd hasn't had a carry yet and the first time he gets the ball, everyone is going to be asking why he hasn't been playing
On The Decision When To Kick The FG In Overtime
“We talked a little bit about how long we wanted to go before we just kicked it and ended it. We probably could have kicked it from the get-go, but again, you can imagine how nervous a guy is at that point. We really wanted to make it a chip-shot and make sure the ball was in the middle of the field. That's what it's all about, coming up when the team needs you.”
On The Team Believing In The
“I think that they believe and that's a critical component to anything. I think they totally believe in what we're doing and why we do it, and that is huge. That confidence will grow. With that, they need to have the maturity of looking at some of the missed opportunities and continuing to push on; and I think they are, and they will. You can't just sit back and think that's great, you need to think that it's great and how we can fix these mistakes.”
On The Team Playing With Urgency
“It's not so much that your getting that womping. These guys are having to scratch and claw, so I think that sense of urgency is still in the back of their mind. They know it's just not coming easy and that's a good thing, because we're playing too many good football teams. You never know how much ten minutes of film or one more rep, or five more pounds is going to help you in the game.”
On Getting Too Confident With The Victory
“We'll put this thing to bed tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon and they'll get Saturday off, but come Sunday, it's all about the Seminoles. They've been pretty good about that so far and so has our staff, so I don't have any problems with that. I'm not one of those guys who looks ahead, persay, I've really been preaching this whole consitancy thing the whole time. Understanding how to balance your life out and win, lose, or draw, let's put it to bed and move on. That has to be the mantra as we go through this thing, because it's just too tough physically, emotionally, and everything else. I don't anticipate our guys having any problems, but we need to be able to do that.”
On Scoring Early And Winning The Game
“That's the fastest we've scored all year. We just made a couple of plays and got going. I'm fired up that that kid (West Virginia Linebacker J.T. Thomas) is going to be alright. You never want to see that happen to someone. It's great to get a win with Eddie's name on the field, and that was special.”
On The Game's Atmosphere
“I took several times during the game to look around and look at the pagentry. I kept thinking how blessed I was to be out there; everyone was in black, everyone was fired up, we're under the lights. I said, ?This is awesome!' It's a great thing to be apart of and to enjoy it. Like I said, I though the longer the game went on, our guys enjoyed it and nobody freaked out. We had a couple of opportunities where we probably should have scored some more points, Misty's son (and his son, quarterback Cody Hawkins) had a hand in not getting those points, but he did get the other points. It just seemed like we had a penalty, or a jacked up play and then we just get behind the eight-ball a little bit. You'd love as time goes on to see us iron that out and be a smooth, operating machine; but I'll take the win, and they're a good football team, so that was a good win.”
On
“The defensive staff and these guys have been working for basically two weeks. When you play a team like
On Where The Program Currently Is
“Nobody wants to be close, but we're a lot closer than people think and realize. You win a couple of games, you get a little bit of confidence, you catch fire and it's on. I do think all of these guys are sold on how we lift, how we discipline, how we practice, and what we ask of them; and I think we're consistant with that. They're starting to see that. We talk about those breakthrough moments, which we had against
On Players Buying Into His Philosophy
“That's what you live for; when that lightbulb comes on and they start connecting the dots on how you win football games, graduate, have this magical existance, and how it all comes together. Guys will understand that if you do things right and do them consistantly, good things are going to happen on the football field or in the classroom. That's the cool thing, when a guy takes something away from this thing bigger than just winning a football game.”
West Virginia Head Coach Bill Stewart
General
"I'm so proud of the way they came out and competed. There's a lot of heart ache in that locker room. But they'll grow and get better. I'm proud of the seniors, they've been such great leaders.”
“For the people of
“I hate it for our team that we couldn't get the win today. We were in the hunt.”
On Play Of Defense
"We gave up 14 points early, then for 55 minutes we played like warriors, true warriors. I'm proud of the way they hung in there and played.”
“Oh boy, you kidding me? They bent a little bit, but (
On Missed Kick In Overtime
“I feel sorry for Patrick McAfee. I don't know what happened with the hold or the snap, but it just hit the upright. He's made us a bunch, but that's a tought miss for him. I hate it for him, I really do.”
“I'm proud of the special teams except for one play. That's going to haunt that poor kid forever. And I hate that for Patrick (McAfee).”
On Trick Play
“We had a wide open guy there, the kid just underthrew the ball. We could have scored there and maybe done some good things. But maybe doesn't get it done.”
On End Of Regulation
“We weren't going to kick the ball at the end of the game. I don't second guess. I absolutely wouldn't change a thing. We weren't going to put our defense on the 50 yard line with the game on the line.”
On Play of Pat White
“He's a lifeblood. He's the best we have.”
On Returning Back to
“I spent four wonderful years at the Air Force acadamy. I used to come up here and visit the Colorado Buffs. We had a great relationship.”
On Being 1-2
“We still have our in-state rival (Marshall) coming in this Saturday. We have every game left in the Big East. We still have some marquee games coming in at home.”
“We have a chance to have a tremendous year if we grow. Our juniors and seniors will hold everyone together. Those guys in that locker room have hurt hearts. They don't feel good, I don't feel good.”
Colorado Players
PK Aric Goodman
ON GAME-WINNING FIELD GOAL- “When they missed the field goal it made it easier mentally on me, I have a chance to win the game, but I cannot lose the game. Mentally knowing that I have a chance to go out there and have fun was important. I just went out there and went through my check list and hit it and fortunately it went through.”
ON OPPORTUNITY TO WIN THE GAME-“It's a great opportunity to go out there and make a kick. Throughout the fourth quarter I knew it might come down to a kick and I had a pretty good practice all week. I knew if it came down to me it was going to go through.”
ON KICKING TRADITION AT CU-“I am confident from 60 yards and in, but it's definitely not the time to relate me to Mason Crosby. Those are huge shoes to fill and he is a fantastic kicker for the Green Bay Packers. I am just trying to creep up into his shadow right now.”
ON SCHOLARSHIP OFFER-“Finally after a year and a half I am now on scholarship.”
ON HIS PERFORMANCE-“I just figured out the defensive game plan and I was figuring out where the holes were and luckily I was getting yards.”
ON DIFFERENT OFFENSIVE FORMATIONS-“I think I like the “I” a little bit more because you have vision to both sides of the field instead of being in the spread when you have vision to one side of the field. It was great that we switched our game plan this week.”
ON EXPERIENCE GAINED-“It shows that we have faith in our program and our team. We came out and worked hard and we knew it was going to pay off.”
QB Cody Hawkins
ON RUNNING GAME-“I have a lot of faith in our offensive line. I think they took it as a challenge last week and a lot of that was miscommunication. This week they did an awesome job of talking to each other and they were very physical and that was the number one key to the game. They did a good job of hustling up to the ball and knocking the snot out of the guy across from them, down after down.”
ON OFFENSIVE LINE-“We have so many great guys up front and Coach Grimes does an awesome job. They take a lot of pride in moving the ball up and down the field. I tip my hat to them because if it wasn't for our offensive and defensive line we wouldn't have won this game tonight.”
ON
ON ARIC GOODMAN RECEIVING A SCHOLARSHIP-“I am so happy for Aric because he is a great kid. Since he came to
LB Jeff Smart
ON DEFENSIVE PLAY-“We always feel like if we can get the lead we have a great shot of winning. If we keep them out of the end zone, then we win the game. It's good to get up early like we did and we got a big turnover and we were able to capitalize on that. They have a bunch of great athletes on their team and it's just a matter of not giving up and fighting.”
ON THIRD DOWN STOP IN OVERTIME-“It's especially big in overtime. It's do or die. We had third and a yard and they lined up in a 100 percent run formation. We got a great call from the coaches and we just played ball from there.”
ON
ON OVERTIME-“As Coach Hawk said, the longer that game went on, we felt better and better. Our defense got put up against the wall a couple times with turnovers and punt returns but we just hung in there and got the stops we needed to prevent them from scoring and that was huge. We knew if we kept doing our job that the offense would make some plays. We ended up going to overtime but we still had confidence that if we stopped them our offense would go down there and score and we did that. They missed a big field goal and we were able to hit our field goal.”
ON THE GAME- “They have a bunch of good athletes. We knew they were going to come in and try to run the ball. And they did that, we just had to stay sound. Pick up our gaps, that would make it easier for us. They got some plays on us, but we stopped most of them. We got put up against the wall a little bit. We had long punt returns, but we were able to battle back from that. And we had some big stops on third and short.”
ON PAT WHITE AND NOEL DEVINE-“They made some plays. We knew they were going to come out. We were able to rally and did a good job keeping them out of the end zone.”
ON DEFENSE-“We played a great game. They got some plays in on us and there are some things we need to look at and get better at. For the most part we kept them out of the end zone. They only got two scores on us. You do a good job anytime you can do that.”
ON OT-“You definitely always want the defense going out there first. We wanted to go out there first. And luckily we were able to go out there and stop them. We knew we had to get the stop. We stuck to our game plan.”
LB Brad Jones
ON THE GAME-“We got up early the defense was trying to keep a level head because we knew it was a long game against a good team. We were trying to focus on not getting caught up in the game. We knew we could stop them. We knew the plays we were going to run, we knew their tendencies. I felt like everyone was covering their responsibilities. We were stopping them. They had that one play where the quarterback scrambled and they scored. All it was, was one touchdown. All one touchdown is, is one play. We realized when it was tied up that the defense had to really focus.”
ON THE DEFENSE-“We were on the sideline telling everyone we needed a turnover because we were going to win this game. We were on the sideline saying, ?defense is going to win this game.'”
ON BLACKOUT-“I loved it. I love the blackout. Those are my favorite games. It's so fun because the crowd is already hyped. They get really loud. When you are on the field it's crazy.”
ON DEFENSE GOING FIRST IN OT-“The defense went out there, and we were like, ?let's stop them.' We knew we were going to stop them, and so all the offense had to do was kick a field goal. Someone missed their man, and they got that first down, but we knew they weren't going to get it in. We knew there was no way
ON GAME-“We came out and started fast. We put up 14 real quick on the first few drives. We were driving and moving the ball well, but then we shot ourselves in the foot with penalties. We were playing well.”
ON FAST START-“That whole first drive we were just moving down the field. We were getting good movement on all the linemen, and getting all the linebackers blocked, and protecting Cody way better than we did last week.”
ON OT-“Even before the miss kick, I knew we were going to win the game. I knew the defense was going to come up with a stop and then it was going to be either we were going to score a touchdown right now, or we were going to kick a field goal if we had to.”
WR Josh Smith
ON GAME-“It was a real good game. Two evenly matched teams. The defense did real well. Our team started fast. They started to come back at the end and then it came down to the wire. And it showed who had the heart left.”
ON WEST
ON MOMENTUM GOING INTO NEXT WEEK-“It's a Thursday night game, we have got a couple of days to regroup. We are going to go back at it fast on Sunday. And be ready to fight down in
FS Ryan Walters
ON
ON OT-“Going on defense first is a huge momentum booster. We were able to prevent them from making the field goal. And we pretty much knew we had it from that moment on.”
ON VICTORY-“It was good to get a W against a team of their caliber. It just shows we can match up against anybody, and when we stick to our game, we can do great things.” DB Eddie Lankster ON THE LOSS- “It hurts right now but we still have to play the Big East.” ON ON TRAILING EARLY- “We just got to the sideline and coach said there is a long game left. He said to take it play by play so we did.” ON COACH BILL STEWART- “Coach Stewart is a great coach. He and his staff are doing a good job. We are behind him one-hundred percent.” ON DB Quinton Andrews ON THE LOSS- “We're devastated, but at the same time, there's a long season ahead of us. Our defense got a little bit of confidence. We came out and played well against a great team. ON THE 1-2 START- “It's tough, especially for those of us who have been in the program for a few years. We aren't used to losing. The rest of the season will define our character and allow us to build on it and find out what type of team we have.” ON GENERAL- “It's tough for me to walk off the field looking at the scoreboard, seeing us down 17-14. A lot of bad comes out of this because we lost, but a lot of good too because as a defense we played well.” RB Noel Devine ON THIRD DOWN EFFICIENCY- “We need to get into the media room to see what we have to do to get better, to improve.” ON THE 1-2 START- “It's tough, but we need to hold our heads high and move on.” ON WEST GENERAL- “We just need to do the best we can, just have to fix the little things, and bounce back from our losses.”
