Colorado-Oregon Quotes
October 04, 2015 | Football
Colorado Head Coach Mike MacIntyre
General              Â
"Oregon played really well tonight and did some good things. On our side, we have to win the turnover ratio; you're going to have a hard time winning Pac-12 football games if you don't win the turnover ratio. Â We didn't do as good of a job there tonight as we have been. A lot of that was on us. I thought our kids battled extremely hard. I definitely thought we could win the game and we had some opportunities to do it. Especially when we got it back to 31-24 (a seven point deficit) and we stopped them and they go for it on third down and two and do the reverse and we were just inches away from making the play. That would have been a huge play there. We couldn't stop the run as well as we would've liked, and we needed to there at the end which is when they were kind of able to just put the ball game away. Our kids definitely believe they can win. I don't know when the last time it was 17-17 at the half with Colorado and Oregon; but in no way shape or form do we take any kind of moral victory. But I do believe our program is growing and I do believe we are going to win our fair share of Pac-12 games this year but we have to take care of the football."
On if anything changed that cause a slow start on offense in the second half        Â
"No, we slipped on the first pass route and we slipped on the next pass route and that kind of got us off to a bad start. They made a couple plays there on the option one time, the quarterback made a nice play. We missed some tackles on that one third down-and-10, we hit the guy, No. 21 [Oregon TB Royce Freeman] three different times. And that was rough because if you get him down there and they have to kick a 38-40 yard field goal, but then they went in to score. That was a tough sequence. But then the way we battled back and made the fourth down stop, that was big. That changed the game; that gave us a chance to win. Then we go down and score, but then we weren't able to get them off (the field) after that. But we did start the second half . . . I thought we'd be able to move the ball down the field and go score, but we didn't start out the second half very well, you are exactly correct, and that hurt us, of course. But, I think right there at the beginning of the fourth quarter we got back in it. 31-24 with I think 10 and a half minutes to go with a lot of momentum. That was a good call by them on that reverse, I thought we would have it, but we didn't. We barely didn't make the play."
On Oregon's rushing attack being an issue          Â
"Yeah, we didn't stop the run very well, as well as we would've liked. Go back and look at it, I mean of course they made some good plays; we didn't fit up a couple things right. Then, we missed a few tackles. But they ran the ball good and that's what I thought they would do. I thought they would come in and hand the ball to Royce Freeman. I don't know No. 5's name (Taj Griffin), I'm sorry I should, but he make a couple nice runs too. He's extremely fast."
On CU's running game and if he was satisfied     Â
"No, I wasn't satisfied with the running game. I wasn't satisfied with the offense all together tonight, our offense is better than that and should be better than that. We need to make sure that we keep improving our offense. We're not hitting on all cylinders it doesn't seem like to me right now and I've got to find a way to fix that. We didn't run the ball as well as I would have liked. We have some running backs down but that's no excuse. We have to be able to be more balanced. We never got in a rhythm all the time it seemed like; we never got in a good rhythm. When you can't get in a rhythm it's hard to be a good offense. We need to improve that, we're better than that on offense. We should have one of our running backs back next week and that should help us."
On if the delay of the game caused any issues    Â
"No, they were in the same situation, I don't think that caused any concerns with our team, I don't. Maybe we should have had a delay of game at halftime in order to come back out (with the same efficiency they had in the first half)."
On QB Sefo Liufau          Â
"I'll find out I'm going to go downstairs and get with Adam [Holliday], our trainer, and figure some things out. That's right where I go after this."
On if they had different scouting reports for UO's QBs    Â
"Well, No. 12 (Taylor Alie) hadn't played much but we felt like he was more of a runner, and that's what he did. We were trying to (stop that), we just screwed up on the option one time and one young man should have taken the quarterback and didn't and he turned up. Then, the next time we played it better. They hadn't really shown that type of option to the backside as much, we had worked on it because we knew it was in their offense, but that was something that we knew was coming but didn't practice it as much, did practice it some."
On what changed in run defense in the second half         Â
"I think we got worn down a little bit and we missed some tackles. The one big run they hit on us, I have to go back and look at it, but I think we lined up wrong and we mis-fit it and they just hit it."
On being better on first-down offense   Â
"We need to definitely get a better first punch. You want to gain four-plus yards on first down for sure. That helps you kind of get into a rhythm. We didn't get into a rhythm as much as we would've liked. We have to go back and look at that and try to figure it out better. I guess they were whipping us up some up front."
Oregon Head Coach Mark Helfrich
 On Two-Quarterback Rotation  Â
"We had a plan going in, and we wanted to execute that plan. They've both done enough good things in practice last week to merit playing. We felt, looking at the game plan, we could parcel out aspects for each. We had it divvied up pretty well in our minds, unless something freaky happened."
On Team's Running Game in the Second Half     Â
"We thought we were really close in every aspect, whether it was the return game or defensively; really close to a couple picks; really close to a couple sacks. We wanted to obviously establish the run and stop the run. We wanted to win the game on special teams. Hopefully this just gives us a little bounce and a little momentum into a completely new challenge next week."
On Two-Running Back Rotation               Â
"I think those guys [Royce Freeman and Taj Griffin] both did some good things, and both did some things that they'll look at and want to change. Going forward, we'll see. This game plan was laid out. There were some very different things that each guy has, some strengths and weaknesses, and we tried to exploit it."
On Team's Play in Fourth Quarter           Â
"It was big. They were getting after us a little bit in their unbalanced run game; we made a nice adjustment there. Offensively, we had a couple adjustments we made. They had brought a couple pressures that they hadn't ever brought before, at least this year. I thought the guys handled that really well. I'm really happy with our effort, but there's a million things we can do better."
 On Play of Taj Griffin    Â
"Taj is a guy that is just fractions away from huge plays. He just needs to play. He needs some experience, and some seasoning. We'll do a great job with that."
On Pregame Delay and Moment Of Silence          Â
"It was weird. The people here did a great job with the game management. All those people did a great job. I want to thank them specifically. One thing that I requested was the moment of silence. They had talked about not doing the moment of silence; I asked if they would. They were very respectful of that, which I thought was a very class deal by Colorado, in particular, Mike MacIntyre, who I asked to do that. They were fantastic about that. Obviously, our hearts and minds are there as well."
Colorado Players
C Alex Kelley
ON THE LOSS - "I wouldn't say it was a backbreaker. We just have to respond better. We have a lot of offensive linemen starting and I think it got to them but from here on out, I think they'll be ready."
ON PAC-12 COMPETETIVENESS - "I still think Oregon is a top tier team. We can hang with top tier Pac-12 teams. That's what I take from this. Every single team in the Pac-12 is good. We didn't play as well as we can but I think some of the young guys are starting to build confidence."
RB Christian Powell
ON BELEIVING THAT THE TEAM COULD WIN – "You definitely saw that in everybody's eyes. Everybody believed it, everybody knew what we were capable of doing. Things just didn't happen right for us. It didn't turn out how we wanted it to."
ON WHETHER THIS GAME WAS A MORAL VICTORY - "If this was two years ago, I would say this was a moral victory. But we felt like we were capable. We just had too many mistakes. We can't take this as a moral victory. We lost the game and that's what it is. We just have to work at it and keep moving forward."
ON OREGON'S DEFENSE - "They are definitely a good defense. We just weren't able to get the ball rolling like we needed to and wanted to and should have."
DB Ken Crawley
ON THE TEAM'S CONFIDENCE TODAY– "It's been there. Absolutely. We changed as a whole group and we believe that we can beat anybody. We come out here and play and challenge these guys. We let one slip away from us but we're not going to let that bother us. We're going to just keep on keeping on and prepare for the next game."
ON KEEPING MORALE HIGH - "That's what we work on. We feel like we could beat anybody and this next week, we can expect the same thing. We can play in this conference, we can challenge these guys. It's just the little things that we need to fix."
ON THE BIG HITS EARLY IN THE GAME - "Every week that's how it goes. We try to get five big hits a game and get our offense the ball. We have to improve on run defense, stuff like that. But, there's still room for improvement. We just have to come out here with the same enthusiasm that we had tonight next week."
ON OREGON'S RUN GAME - "We know that they were going to get some plays. Oregon has some great running backs and we're going to keep seeing them throughout the rest of the season. We just have to keep challenging them and working and rev up and tackle."
ON THE LOSS - "We just have to put it in the past. We have to go out and get another one. We have an opportunity each week and we have to put all of this in the past and just do us."
RB Phillip Lindsay
ON THE TEAM'S PERFORMANCE TODAY – "Really it came down to us and our execution. Every game we play, it's not about the other team; it's about us and our mindset. For me personally, I wasn't patient enough and that's just me going in there. Tomorrow when we look at film, we have to learn from that. We have to set our linemen up. It's easy when you can set your linemen up."
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF MINMIZING TURNOVERS - "We just can't make mistakes. I had a big costly one with the fumble. That turned into points. Coach Mac stresses about it every time that the one with the least turnovers is going to win the game. And they had the least turnovers. That's on us."
ON HIS TURNOVER - "It [my fumble] was muddled (slippery) but there's no excuse why I shouldn't have gotten it. I'm a running back. That's my job. My job is to get the ball and I need to go in there and correct that. Tomorrow we're getting ready for Arizona State, getting the game plan and getting ready for another week so we can get this victory."
ON THE TEAM'S ENERGY AND MORALE - "It's going to be like that every game because it's a different breed of people now. We're here to win. We're not here to just compete anymore. We're here to win. We need to put big plays together. We're a team. We have to stay close to each other. That's giving everybody props when they're doing well because that's only going to make our team stronger. It's about team building."
ON WHAT THE TEAM WILL LEARN FROM THIS LOSS - "We're definitely going to build on this but in our eyes, we should have won that game. That's just us. We don't want to take anything from Oregon. They're a tough team. But, we want to win games. That's it. We're tired of the close ones. We should have gone out there and executed the way that we needed to, to win this game."
DE Leo Jackson III
ON OREGON'S PERFORMANCE – "We prepared for this. We just had some mental mistakes on my part and on other guys' parts. Overall, they showed us everything that we've been looking at the past week."
ON THE ENERGY IN FOLSOM FIELD - "The energy was great. It was live. We had the fans, we had Folsom rocking. Everything seemed like it was going our way. It was just those mistakes that ended up costing us."
ON THE PROCESS OF BUILDING A DEFENSE - "We're realizing that it's a process. We're building a defense, we're building CU back to what it was back in the day. We're almost there. It's just all a process."
ON IMPROVEMENTS THAT NEED TO BE MADE - "It [getting pressure on the quarterback] has definitely improved but there's still room for improvement. We just have to keep moving. We actually felt like we could beat them. In our minds, we could have. Stuff happens though."
ON OREGON'S RUN GAME - "I don't think [Oregon's run game wore the defense down in the second half]. It was just the energy. There were times that we couldn't even hear things because Folsom was blocking Oregon out and we couldn't hear things on defense. Not to make any excuses but."
ON WHAT THE TEAM CAN LEARN FROM THIS LOSS - "We can definitely build on this going forward in Pac-12 play. That's what we're going to watch film and build off of to make sure we don't make these mistakes when we go down to Tempe next week."
DE/OLB Derek McCartney
ON DIFFERENCE FROM FIST HALF TO SECOND HALF - "I think it was just, kind of like what Nelson (Spruce) said, we just need to limit some of the mistakes in specific defenses. We don't feel like we were out matched by any means but like he said we just have to limit some of the mistakes."
ON OREGON'S RUNNING GAME - "I think it was more of each play someone just had a mental something and it just kind of didn't work out for us. But we are going to get better. It is definitely frustrating and we have to be better as a front seven to stop the run if we want to win."
ON RAIN DELAY- "No I mean we were fired up when we came out. I mean yeah everyone was like, 'Ah this is stupid. I just want to get out there and play,' but we were fired up when the game started."
ON MOVING FORWARD AS A DEFENSE - "Really as a defense, to get better, we are just going to have to keep doing our job, get better as group and just keep focusing on our job. Fundamentals."
WR Nelson Spruce
ON THE LOSS – "Not make more plays; just eliminate some of the mistakes is the big thing. I don't think at one time we were out matched by them. We just kind of turned the ball over a little bit in the beginning, didn't run the ball to well and they [Oregon] kind of ran the ball well against us. I think there were plays to be made but overall I don't think we were out matched, we just made some mistakes that ended up hurting us."
ON LOSING a CLOSE GAME AT HALF - "I mean it's tough just because up to this point in the season I think when we are in those close games in the fourth quarter and we felt like we had the advantage just because we have gotten better finishing those close games. So this is kind of a step back in that aspect. We were tied at half time, got the ball and we didn't really put our foot on the gas and really seize the opportunities that we had. So that is definitely something that we are definitely going to work on going forward in the conference."
ON OREGON'S SECONDARY - "Well going into the game we knew their secondary was something maybe we could take advantage of, so it was kind of built into our game plan going into the game. As the game went on we were able to make some plays when the protection held up. The cushion they were giving us, we were able to kind of get some quick game going."
ON OREGON'S SECOND HALF DEFENSE- "I noticed that they started running a little more cover two and keeping the cornerback not give that much cushion; they were kind of sitting him out at five with a safety over the top. I saw a little more of that. Maybe they were just anticipating us throwing it more but that's what I noticed."
ON THE MOMENTUM CHANGER - "I mean I don't think until it got down to a little bit in the fourth quarter when it mathematically was impossible that we like gave up. But it was probably a turning point in the game where we made a mistake where a team like Oregon is going to capitalize on most of the time, so that's something we need to eliminate."
ON BEING THREE AND TWO - "Obviously you want to win every game but we are kind of looking at it like we need to learn our lesson from this one. This team has a different feeling about it and we feel like we can be competitive in every game so we can't let a loss like this carry on into our week of practice and affect next week. We are going to come in and watch film tomorrow, learn what we can and shake it off and get ready for ASU
DB Tedric Thompson
ON THE PHYSICALITY OF THE GAME – "Yeah it did. We knew we had to by physical facing a team like this, especially with that running back, (Royce) Freeman. They had a lot of physical receivers, so we need we had to be physical to help ourselves get the win."
ON THE GAME GETTING AWAY FROM THEM – "They're going to make big plays. Like a couple of the big runs they had, like we have to go back and watch film to see what happened. We knew they were going to make plays, so we never got down on ourselves. I say the only time we got down on ourselves was when the fourth quarter hit zero-zero-zero."
ON THE TOUGH LOSS – "We can beat Oregon; we can beat anyone else in the Pac(12) we play against. We just got to fix the little things—that's the kind of mindset we have. Some people probably call it cocky, or whatever you want to call it; but when we line up, the way we prepare and all that, we feel like nobody can beat us. But it's always the littlest things that that beat us—like not being in the right gap, not getting the right call—so once we get that down and fixed to a hundred percent we are going to be fine."
ON BEING ABLE TO COMPETE WITH OREGON – "I mean we always knew we could compete with them. We look at them as another decal. No disrespect towards them, but we don't look at them as like a super great team, we feel that we can beat them. That's how we feel about every great team. So when it was 17-to-17 we felt like we should have been up, to be honest with you. We weren't even in the locker-room like patting each other on the back, it was more like why is this team tied with us; we shouldn't be tied. That's the kind of attitude we had."
ON DBs PERFORMANCE – "I think we just wanted to give our defense the best chance we can to win. When plays come our way, we just got to make our plays 'cause we know our front seven are working their butts off to try to stop the run and get pressure on the quarterback. We don't want to let them down. So whenever we have a chance to make a play, we are just going to have to make it."
Oregon Players
QB Taylor Alie
ON THE WIN — "This win was huge, especially after the last game. We needed to come out, pull together, and get a victory and that's what we did."     Â
ON QB ROTATION — "We had it in mind that that might be the way (coaches decided). We're just trying to get players on the field and make things happen. It was up to the coaches, whatever they felt is what we needed at the time was up to them.   Â
ON SUCCESS IN RUN GAME —"Yeah we had some great blocking up front and we really have some horses at running back. Colorado is a great team but we had some great runs and Royce [Freeman] and Taj [Griffin] ran well."           Â
ON PLAYING MOSTLY TURNOVER FREE GAME — "We try not to have turnovers obviously and not turning the ball over wins games most of the time, but like I said we left a lot of plays out on the field that we need to improve on."
WR Bralon Addison
ON OREGON'S SECOND HALF DEFENSIVE EFFORT — "I just told them in the locker room, I was so proud of the way the defense played in the second half. That was huge, they only gave up seven points in the second half. I think they jumpstarted us in the second half, kind of got the offense rolling. That's definitely a big win for us. A lot of people probably thought we'd come in here and dominate Colorado but they're not 3-1 for no reason.  They're a very improved football team and I think this is a good win for us to go in confident next week and prepare for Washington State."           Â
ON GETTING INTO RHYTHM OFFENSIVELY — "We've just got to be ready. Division one football you've got to be ready. Whenever it's your turn, you've got to be ready. Some nights we're going to run the ball for four hundred yards and some nights we're going to pass the ball for three hundred yards. It was just one of those nights where we had to rely on the running game and I thought that our backs and our offensive line did a good job. Even the quarterbacks in the run game, I thought they did a good job.
ON REVERSE PASS TOUCHDOWN — "You know all week we worked on it, just trying to kind of get that muscle memory back.  I came around and I saw [WR]Charles [Nelson] running so I tried to look off the safety a little bit and I laid it out there for him and he did the rest."
ON SLOW PASSING GAME — "We trust those guys one hundred percent. Every quarterback has bad games and great games so we're not worried about it whether they struggled or had a great game. The biggest thing is we came out with the win and we trust all three of our quarterbacks. I thought they did a great job tonight of taking advantage of things and being leaders out there.
ON PLANNING FOR TRICK PLAY CALLS — "I was just always ready. A lot of teams every week have trick plays in their game plan but sometimes you don't get into the situation to call it. When I saw the signal called it, I just took the read, I saw [WR] Charles [Nelson] running down the sideline and I tried to look off the safety and lay it out there for him and I knew he would come up with it."
ON IMPORTANCE OF BIG PLAY — "I thought all of our plays tonight were very convenient. I thought we made some good plays at the right time and we made some bad plays at the wrong time but I'm really proud of our defense and the way they stepped up in the second half, only allowed seven points. I think that's big moving forward."
ON RUN GAME SUCCESS — "I thought our o-line did a good job and our running backs found creases. I thought our tempo, we did a good job of tempo-ing them, you know keeping it moving fast and sometimes that gives us an edge. We saw they started to get tired a little bit and our offensive line leaned in on it and our running backs, they hit the creases when they had them so I thought we did a great job at taking advantage of those things."
QB Jeff Lockie
ON QUARTERBACK ROTATION – "It's something we had talked about during the week, we'd just kind of rotate through and go with what's working. That happened and we came out with a win."              Â
ON THE WIN – "It was huge. Looking back now, coming out of the half tied, then having that kind of second half was really big for us."              Â
ON MOOD AT HALFTIME – "We were ready to cut it loose. We had a lot of stuff that was on the tip of working. We really wanted to get back out there and leave it out on the field. We came out with a stop, drove all the way down and scored a touchdown, and I think that really set the tone for the half."
LB Rodney Hardick
ON OREGON'S DEFENSIVE EFFORT—"We do things right all the time and it's nice to see our team actually finish a game. We didn't give away touchdown; they earned those. We still have a lot of ways to improve leverage and tackling, but it was better."  Â
ON HELP FROM THE RUN GAME – "We practice so hard, so we're used to only having a few plays off. When we get that extra time we can prepare, we like it, but we're ready to go whenever we're needed."
ON STOPPING COLORADO RUN GAME – "We simplified our defense and really made things easier. We have a great coaching staff. We had 11 guys doing their job."      Â
RB Taj Griffin
ON PLAYING TIME – "I expected to get some. We had been working on a lot of things in practice and I was ready to play. I was ready for anything really."Â
ON SPEED COMPLIMENTING RUNNING GAME – "Yeah, I definitely think it was a cool duo thing. I got them with the speed and Royce [Freeman] got them with strength. Kani [Benoit] did a great job too and I feel like none of that would've been possible without the O-line."    Â
ON RUNNING GAME'S ROLE IN OFFENSE MOVING FORWARD – "I feel like we can (carry the offense) we definitely have to get some things to work in the passing game but you know, we're just going to keep getting better and go from here."           Â
ON SECOND HALF – "We definitely came back in a regrouped. We got everything settled down, spoke with coach. He told us what the plan was and we went out and executed."
ON ADDED PRESSURE FROM A STRUGGLING PASSING GAME – "Yeah there was definitely some pressure on us but I didn't think it was anything we couldn't handle. We practice hard every week and I don't think it was anything we weren't ready for."
