(Opening Statement)
“First of all, I'm really proud of our guys. The way they went out and played today. We've been getting a lot better in the last few weeks, and that's what we've been talking about throughout the week and how we prepare on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, every day of the week. That's what matters. You surrender the outcome. We started doing that last week at Notre Dame and our guys played all the way to the end and just came up a little bit short. We told them last night and in the Friday night meeting that we thought we had a great opportunity today to explode as a football team. You could just feel it throughout the last few weeks and, and you had to believe that. Our guys came out today right from the start. I thought defensively that we gave up a touchdown drive but after that, we settled in and played very, very well throughout the rest of the day. I thought offensively, a lot of big plays, which was kind of what we were accustomed to last year. For whatever reason this year, they haven't been doing that and they were dialed in today. I thought (Malik) Cunningham played well. Tutu (Atwell) got loose and (Javian) Hawkins got loose. It was fun watching those guys make those kinds of plays. It's fun to see our guys close it out in the second half. Even right there at the end. I just think you fight all the way to the end and no matter what the score is. When they had the ball down there, we muffed a punt, and essentially the game's over. They get four opportunities inside the 10 and we hold them out. That's huge. I love that. And that's the mark of really good football teams. We have to continue to get better. We're not anywhere near where we need to be, but I can tell you when you go in a locker room after the win. It's a lot more fun than what's been happening the last few weeks.”
(How important was to get the big play back in your offense?)
“Extremely important, obviously for many reasons. It keeps your offense rolling, you get momentum. You obviously get points on the board, and that's what we have to do. We have so many of these guys that can make that those types of plays happen. Sometimes the play is not exactly drawn up the way you want it to, but guys make it. Like the Hawkins run, we ended up reversing field and went for a 70-yard touchdown. That's a great play by Hawkins. He got a good block by Cunningham on that play. It's such an essential part of this offense, because we do want to run the ball but we know when we call the shots downfield, we’ve got to connect on those in order to make the whole thing go, and that's what we're able to do.”
(Talking Tutu’s big play and when the big play comes early and opens the floodgates to cause more big plays?)
“Well it does, but it also gives you confidence. It really gives everybody confidence. You can just feel the sidelines erupt really in all phases. Because that's what we are accustomed to seeing. That's what we have to see and I think that was on second-and-23 or second-and-24 on that big play. Tutu just outran them and it was a really good throw by Malik. We've been missing that connection with the deep ball for several games this year. That's what we had to get back to be able to make. We had several more throughout the day today that we didn't connect on all of them. We had several that we probably could have scored on but that was good to see that on that particular one.”
(What were your thoughts on how the defense played after giving up a score on their opening drive?)
“I think they made three third down conversions on that particular drive. When they went down and scored and, we're right there. We had the quarterback in the backfield at least two times maybe three times and he scrambles out and gets the first down. So what it says is that we have guys there they got to be able to make those plays, but we didn't make them. They went and scored, but what was awesome about that is that we responded. And we went down to score seven points within, I think, three plays maybe and got that score tied right back up. Now our defense can go back and recalibrate what we're doing, and get back out on the field. They played great from that point forward… several batted balls. They were passing the football 14-for-41 throwing the football, but it was a lot of contested throws out there. A lot of balls that were knocked down, probably at least three balls that should have been intercepted. I told our guys we're going to pull the jugs machine out and let the DB's work on catching balls. We have to get those balls, when they're hung in the air like that, but a great job by our defense after that first drive.”
(About Javian’s reverse play and scoring a touchdown)
“Well a lot of that is God-given ability. On that play they got penetration on the right side. They blitzed on the backside, but the blitzer was not up the field, he was tight to the line of scrimmage. He kind of gets bounced back toward the middle to the line of scrimmage and with his vision on the left side. He kind of saw where he could bounce that out and he was able to bounce all the way around and take it all the way to the endzone. But he just has a lot of God-given ability. He can run fast and he’s tough and strong. You usually don’t like to see that out of your running backs where you bounce back in the backfield and for the most part, he doesn’t do that. He does a good job sticking down and getting his head up in there, but it was nice to see the big plays and you have a lot more flexibility when you take it 70 yards at the back end.
(About being more consistent this game with moving the ball)
“I thought it all started up front. I thought our offensive line did a tremendous job, they are really big across the front, 6’7,6’5, 6’5, 6’5 and they are all close to 300 pounds. We wanted to get them running and we didn't think we could just line up and push them off the ball, so we had a lot of good plays out on the perimeter, out on the edge within our running game so that kept us on track. I don’t know if we had a ton of lost yardage plays today - I don’t think we did, but much better than what we have done. But I think it starts up front, they created some good holes and then I think Malik was very consistent in the pass game in the first half. What did he have, one incompletion maybe? So that keeps you on track. When you are able to keep on track like that, now you’re able to dial up the next play. It’s a lot harder to call second and 12 or third and 14. But if you’re second and two… it’s a lot easier.”
(About the win, what does it do for the team’s confidence)
“I think it does a lot. Even last week our guys were confident coming out. I know it was a loss, but our guys played well. We were in that game and we were right there. The Pitt game we were in that game, we only lost by 3. But you need a game like this to kind of get you over the hump to say, ‘hey listen, all the hard work you are putting in and the things you are doing consistently, daily, it doesn’t guarantee you a win but it gives you a chance. And that’s what we are telling them. Today, when it all clicks, you get a big win and this will just propel us into next week. We have to have the best Sunday that we’ve had this year… You have to just continue to get better every single day and if you don’t then you’re sliding and not doing good. We don’t worry about the outcomes on game day, we have Virginia Tech next week, they’re great football team, but we have to put together another great week of practice and everybody has to be focused and stay consistent. That will give us a great chance when we go play them next Saturday. So that’s all we have to focus on and not worry about the rest of the stuff.”
(About struggling the past couple weeks, was this a sense of relief this week?
“Yeah, you could call it relief. It’s good when those plays hit, because our guys work so hard and our coaching staff works really, really hard as well. We are here all the time… and when you put all that time and effort into it you want the plays to work on game day. You get frustrated sometimes when it’s just not clicking whether it be offense, defense or kicking game. Same thing with the players, all the time and effort they are putting into it, they want to see all the fruits of their labor on game day. When our guys go out and make plays and I see them flying around and having fun and I see them dancing in the locker room it makes all the hard work worthwhile. We certainly were welcoming all of the big plays today and that win.”
(Was that the offense you expected to see consistently this year?)
“Absolutely. This is what we expect, we rushed for 291 yards and threw for 278 - that’s a great balance. In the game we were 5-for-9 on third down, which is tremendous. We were 6-for-6 on red zone scores and out of the offense we didn't turn the football over. This was a very efficient day offensively, big plays in the running game and passing game. It was a great day. And that’s what we want to see from our guys and hopefully we will build off of this and we will continue to move forward with that next week.”
