Texas A&M vs. SFA Post Game Quotes
Sep 04, 2010 | Football
Sept. 4, 2010
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"SFA came in well-prepared. I think J.C. Harper does a great job with those kids. He's really turned that program around. In the first half we kind of shot ourselves in the foot offensively. I thought the defense played real well. We were at 99 plays. We had three penalties and no turnovers. So that's a plus. I have to do a better job of the red zone in the first half. In the second half we came back and I thought we executed well in the red zone. In the first half, put that one on me."
On the effort to run up the middle on third down... "I really wanted to get the running game going today. We probably sacrificed some things just to put the emphasis on the run game. You saw a lot of repeat runs and hard downhill runs at different times that maybe in another situation we'd do something different."
On Ryan Swope... "I thought he played well. He was able to catch a lot of swing passes on the bubbles we threw. I thought he did a nice job and made some people miss."
On the offensive line... "We ran the ball okay. We had some nice runs. I'd have to go back and look at the tape really to get an honest assessment. We had a freshman tight end who struggled at times early blocking the right people, and that kind of threw us off a bit. We had a freshman left tackle too. I think in the first quarter we had a little first-game jitters. Once we settled in though they played well. Matt Allen and the inside three played well. I thought we moved the ball fairly well on the ground."
On the effort of the defense... "We have a long way to go on offense, defense and special teams. We played nine freshman tonight as opposed to 18 last year. That was a plus. We had a couple of junior college kids in there as well on defense. I thought they tackled well. We ran hard to the football. I was pleased with their effort. We talk about fanatical effort and at times we had really great effort. It was nice to see but we have a ways to go. We talked about getting 11 guys to the football and I thought we had that for most part. We had an interception return for a touchdown, batted balls and tackles for losses. I thought our effort was good with the understanding that we still have a ways to go."
On Jerrod Johnson... "He was off on a couple of things. There were a couple of times we threw the ball down the field, and that was probably my fault throwing toward the north end zone where a pretty good wind was blowing. It was swirling more than you'd think. You could see that in the kicking game, and it was affecting our kickoffs as well. I've seen him make those throws in the past and I'm sure he'll get that back. We need to be able to hit those throws. If you're open, we have to make them."
On Von Miller... "Von sprained his ankle. He wanted to go back in the second half and give it a try. We didn't use him much at all, and we'll just try and get him ready for next week. He played on it during the game."
ASST HEAD COACH/DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR Tim DeRuyter
On overall defensive effort.... "I was happy with the effort today. In a first ballgame things can be sloppy, and we had a couple of those things. You're not going to play perfect, but our effort was pretty good. We talk to the players all time about what it takes to have a championship type defense--takeaways, play physical, play with fanatical effort and get stops. I thought we played physical for most of the game. I thought we tackled well and I thought we got some stops. We forced two takeaways, and I thought we had a couple more opportunities we didn't take advantage of. Of the four things, overall I think we played okay. SFA is an excellent football team. They are really well-coached. I was really impressed with that team."
On the play of Von Miller going down early, I thought he did a great job stepping up leadership-wise. He made some great plays. Demontre, we think he's going to be a special player also. With Von going down, he got a lot of reps. I thought for the most part he played really well."
On the defensive effort... "We have four components that make up a championship defense. One of the ones we probably push the hardest is fanatical effort. I think we showed that today. All we do is talk about the Wrecking Crew tradition."
On the locker room... "The locker room is definitely a good environment now. Tonight was a good starting point for us and something we can build off of."
SOPHOMORE RB CHRISTINE MICHAEL
On the SFA defense... "First off, it's a blessing that we won the game and people walked off the field safe. Those guys (SFA) played hard. I want to give compliment to those guys. Their defense was tremendous. They were a pretty good team overall."
On the Cyrus Gray/Christine Michael combination... "We did well today. We're good together and kind of feed off each other. But we couldn't do anything without those front five guys. The receivers blocked really well tonight too."
On the offense taking a while to get going... "It's just like any other team. It's going to take a while to get a feel for the defense. Those guys come out hard. You've got to learn their weak points and take your time. But we got it going."
On being counted as a rusher... "It's a little bubble screen that we run, we've been practicing it for a while in the Spring and the Summer. I got the ball in space tonight and the other receivers did a good job blocking downfield. It's a fun little package that we run."
On being an unsung hero... "This past week, we did a great job in preparation for SFA, the coaches did a great job. I tried hard tonight running those bubble (screens), Jerrod did a great job. It was a good night, I think I had eight or nine catches. It felt good to get the ball in my hands."
On the tandem of Michael and Gray... "Those two guys are unbelievable running backs. They're both very different; Cyrus is shifty and has good hips, C-Mike is explosive. As a receiver, I feel comfortable blocking for them because I know they're a step away from breaking a big one. They're just very explosive."
On Coach DeRuyter/New defensive changes... "I feel like we did a really good job, we went out and executed a lot of good things tonight. We gave up a few plays, but we can fix that on the drawing board. Hats off to SFA, we just executed a little better than them. Coach DeRuyter knows what he's talking about, he knows what he's doing, and we have all the faith in him. "
On Harris' "pick-6"... "It means a lot, I wish we had a lot more of them. His pick was a phenomenal play, he read, he did his job and came out on top. I wish we had a lot more. He's competing for that job, that's what this defense is all about."
On the big hits... "Countless times, you hear about the old-school Wrecking Crew, laying out people on every play, being physical on every play. We're trying to do that, trying to hit people, trying to be physical."
On working on what went wrong... "It'll be back to the drawing board, they'll set us down, show us what we did wrong, show us how to fix it, we had a pretty good football game tonight."
On downfield pass troubles... "I just missed them, I think that's all it was. Going into the first game, it's a new year and everything last year is in the past. Coach is always saying let things be, but I'm a perfectionist, and I'm always trying to fix things."
On offense... "We went into this game with the mindset that we would take what we can get, SFA played really hard. We didn't want to turn the ball over, so we had a lot of low-risk plays and kept some plays. At one point on the sideline though, we looked up and saw that we had almost 300 yards of offense and only one touchdown. There are a lot of things we can work on."
On the offensive line's play... "They played well, they're the heart and soul of our team. My hat goes off to those guys, they played well and welcomed Luke in, we're going to be a good team."
On Ryan Swope... "We treat those kind of like run plays. His great ability to run after the catch and how hard he is to bring down is great. At the same time, he took some licks and got right back up. He's a big weapon we will use throughout the season."
SFA POSTGAME QUOTES - A&M 48, SFA 7
Head Coach J.C. Harper
"The first five minutes of the third quarter they came out and established what they wanted to do, and that's take it down the field and score. Then we had the kickoff return and fumbled the ball, and they got it. That's where it turned, but we can learn from that. It's going to happen somewhere in the year where we're going to have to do the same thing, which is come out in the third quarter and take momentum. You have to take your hat off to them, they did what they had to do. You have to give Texas A&M all the credit. They have a heck of a defense, I think they are a great football team. I look at their speed and talent, and that they hit hard. I don't see where their weakness is defensively. I like the fact that we didn't give up many sacks. We're not going to see a better defense this year. [Von Miller] is a great outside linebacker. I'm pleased with SFA tonight. I was pleased with our fight, our determination, and our execution. All the things we could've controlled I'm pleased with. Obviously we can't control Texas A&M. They are a heck of an opponent and they are better than we are."
Senior Quarterback Jeremy Moses
"Texas A&M came out slower than we thought they were. There were things that were more open than what we thought we were going to see. We play against our defense every day, to be honest there are smaller windows to throw through against our defense than there was theirs. We just had a couple third downs that we need to convert. Texas A&M came out in the second half fired up."
(On Kyle Field crowd) "After playing in Montana last year this was a cake walk. I'll play here any day of the week, and it wasn't 18 degrees."
(After throwing the interception) "Throwing the ball so many times in the year, that's going to happen. The DB made a great play and there's no way I was going to catch him. That shows the character of our team. We came back and scored a touchdown right after that."
