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University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota vs. Iowa Post-Game Quotes
11/18/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
Minnesota Head Coach Glen Mason
Opening Statement:
“I am extremely proud of the kids because things haven’t exactly gone their way this year. For them to continually to go out after having set-backs and do what they have done is a credit to those kids. They deserve all the credit. We don’t have many seniors, but they gave outstanding leadership. I think one of the best stories in college football this year is Matt Spaeth. When a guy in this day and age turns his head on what is maybe best for him and his pro career and wants to come back and play for his team and his school, that is refreshing. We should hail that. That is exactly what he did.”
On becoming bowl eligible:
“We are not done and wherever we go, we deserve to go. We will have a good time, I promise you that.”
On the gratification of the win:
“I have said this sometime when I have lost so I don’t feel bad about saying it now, but is there anything better than college football? This was an exciting afternoon. It was exciting for me, it was exciting for the players and it had to be exciting for the fans. I hope you enjoyed a hard-hitting Big Ten football game by a bunch of kids who are rivals because that is what they are supposed to do.”
On the strong finish:
“I don’t know when I have felt more emotional, and I have been coaching a long time. I know these kids had a tough road the last three games. They had to come together and to watch them do that was what makes my job really fun.”
On Iowa’s turnovers:
“Talk about momentum - the first turnover was big, but the one right before the half was big. My players sprinted up to the locker room and momentum was in their back pockets. They felt good about it instead of hopefully holding them to a field goal. We went away without them scoring any points.”
On senior Bryan Cupito:
“Bryan Cupito has had an outstanding career here. The last couple of years he has been overshadowed by the running game, but we were never one-dimensional. All of a sudden it was being announced that he was the passing leader in Minnesota history and I thought it was fitting today how he ended he regular season career. He has been to five bowl games.”
On Mike Sherels’ interception:
“There were a lot of big plays in the game and it is hard to pin-point one thing. There were a lot of things going on in the game, but that was obviously a big thing. I think we intercepted four passes today. Mike Sherels is a guy who tried to prove everybody wrong. He came up here and I had him at fullback, but he would knock up the linebackers so I moved him to linebacker and had him knock up the fullbacks. He worked hard over the summer. He is almost a different guy and the best part is that he is coming back next year.”
On a possible Iowa comeback:
“I am nervous when any quarterback is on the other side. Drew Tate has magic. I am sure he is not pleased with his play day today, but coming down the wire we almost had him for a big sack. I was thinking we had him and then it was a touchdown. I am glad he is a senior. He does that game after game, scrambling around breaking tackles.”
On Jay Thomas:
“Jay has really come along. He really has great speed, but he is not the biggest guy in the world. Last year after his knee injury he came back really fast. We did the right thing. We eased him back because his knee would swell up. Running back is a hard position to play unless you are really healthy because you take a beating. One thing he really gives us is great speed. I also think Amir Pinnix played well today. There were some really tough yards in there today.”
On the past three weeks:
“I talk to my coaches all the time. Coaches like to talk. We wanted to get the players talking. If a player talks and can teach you then it means that he really knows it. Let him tell you what he knows. After the Ohio State game we talked in the locker room and we wanted to get an idea about what they were thinking. We wanted to utilize what they said. When you start with great kids, which we have, you always have a chance working your way out of a rut.”
Iowa Head Coach Kirk Ferentz
Opening statement:
“Congratulations to Minnesota. They outplayed us in every area and were completely deserving of the win. The second thing I’ll say is that we are very appreciative to still have a bowl bid and we’re going to work hard to put a good football game together. There’s not much to say about this game. We got outplayed, out-coached and all of us have ownership. It’s disappointing to sit here right now at 6-6, but that’s what we are and that’s what we played like today. Hopefully no one who is associated with our football team is happy or proud right now.”
On the interception before halftime:
“They’re (turnovers) all big. On special teams we were unspectacular, on offense we turned it over like five times and our defense couldn’t get a stop when we needed it. That interception (before halftime) hurt obviously, but at that point it was still anybody’s game to win. It was a three-point game and if we could have come out after halftime and taken care of our business, but that’s something we weren’t able to do.”
On playing Christensen:
“Things weren’t going too smoothly for Drew and I thought he needed a little time to cool off. We gave Jake a shot in there, but that’s a tough situation to put a player in, especially at that position, and then we came back with Drew.”
On Young tripping on fourth down:
“From my view it looked like we had a good chance to get the first down and we just couldn’t do it. You can take probably five or six plays from this game like that one that really sum up our season.”
On not kicking the field goal:
“Kyle wasn’t a hundred percent. He didn’t practice Tuesday or Wednesday. I didn’t think he was going to be able to get it done. We were fully aware that we needed thirteen points, but we decided to run it.”
On the season as a whole:
“Consistency. That’s what it’s all about in this league. Without playing consistently each week, you are going to end up like we did.”
Minnesota Players
Quarterback Bryan Cupito
Opening Statement:
“It was a great way to end the season because we had to win to go to a bowl game; against an Iowa team that we haven’t defeated since I’ve been here. So it was a great way to end the season. We put ourselves in a bad position during the season to be in this position now, but luckily, we pulled out a win to make it to a bowl game.”
On his career passing marks:
“Well, I’ve had some great players around me and we’ve had great running backs and great tight ends and receivers in the system since I’ve been here. It’s a lot easier to make plays with guys like that around you.”
On the balance on offense:
“We just came out a threw the ball and that was working then we then we ran the ball and that worked. We’ve had some real good game plans the past few weeks, mixing it up and we finally excecuted. We’ve always had good game plans, but I’m throwing a bad ball and a dropped pass here and there…we finally executed real well.”
Tight End Matt Spaeth
On having to win the last game:
“We had our backs against the wall and it was basically win or go home. We still would’ve finished out the season. We had a team meeting. We all came together and everybody kind of talked about what we thought was going wrong with the season. Ever since then, we came together and gelled and that’s what turned our season around.”
On putting off shoulder surgery:
“That hasn’t been decided. It's whether I want to wait a whole month and play one more game or just get it done and start healing. Its something I’m going to have to sit down with my parents, coaches and trainers and doctors and then I’ll make a decision. But, right now I’m still undecided. It’s a grade 5 separation so basically is completely separated; my right shoulder. Right now it feels great, we won.”
Wide Receiver Logan Payne
On the victory:
“It was a great victory. You know the last game at home, finally beat Iowa and I’ve never seen that pig before so that’s a great way to finish. Going to a bowl game. One more chance to strap it up as a Golden Gopher. This team deserves it. The way we came back and we never gave up on ourselves and our teammates and the way we came back, we deserve it.”
On Cupito’s play:
“We came out knowing we were going to have to throw the ball a lot and they kind of took that away a few plays here and there. It opened up the running game a lot and we ran well and I was able to make some big plays at crucial times in the game. I was glad I was able to do that for my team.”
Linebacker Mario Reese
On the defensive improvement:
“We all wanted to go to a bowl game. We knew we had to win the last game and we had to take it one game at a time. Everyone on the defense started getting excited, the offense also started clicking so we started playing together as a team like early in the season.”
On the atmosphere of the team:
“Everybody stepped up the last couple games after the loss to Ohio State. We knew we had to go out and play hard to get to a bowl game."
Running Back Amir Pinnix
On the team's performance last three weeks:
“This is a huge step forward because there was three games we had to win in order to go to a bowl game. As a team we executed and went out there to get the victories we needed.”
On teammate Jay Thomas:
“Jay did unbelievable today. He’s been doing a great job these last three weeks. I am so happy for him. I have been there. He has had his time and helped us out a lot.”
Running Back Jay Thomas:
On the offense’s performance:
“We are doing what we need to do to get our running game going, which has opened our passing game. Both of them complement each other, so it works hand-in-hand when we do that.”
On the meaning of the Floyd trophy:
“I heard about it, the guys were talking about it all week. I haven’t seen us beat Iowa. I went to a couple of games when Minnesota played Iowa, and Iowa had won. It was really nice to get it for the team, especially the seniors.”
Linebacker Mike Sherels:
On his interception:
“I moved across the play action and just sunk on the ball and reached up to grab it. The perfect defense was called. We expected them to run a play action. So play action is what we called. If the play action was thrown, it would be thrown right over the middle. I saw the play action and saw them throw it away and the ball happened to be right there and I caught it.”
On his performance:
“I had a good day. A lot of it has to do with the D-line. They allowed me to free up and make a lot of plays. I am really proud of our defense in the way we played these last three weeks.”
On players speaking at Thursday meeting:
“Mason said ‘If anyone has anything to say, speak your piece.’ This time, instead of people standing up and saying negative things, saying we are doing this wrong or that wrong, or we’re not trusting this person, everything said by everyone was positive. ‘I’m having fun playing football again.’ ‘I’m loving where we’re going right now.’ ‘I’m loving the way we’re approaching things.’ With everything being positive, it was a big momentum push.”
Center Tony Brinkhaus
On the victory:
“I would say it was rewarding. Obviously a lot of people were counting us out, saying we were done. There was a lot of negativity around. After the Indiana game, we had a swagger and some confidence and we just ran with it. It’s one of those things that shows the type of character we have as a team, because it would have been so easy to give up.”
Iowa Players
Wide Receiver Andy Brodell
On the frustrating loss:
“Its obviously frustrating. We have gotten ourselves into a growing trend of turnovers over the course of the year and that’s one thing you have to cut out when you are trying to win Big 10 football games. Every team in this conference is good and they’re going to capitalize on those things. That was the case today.”
On finishing the season 6-6:
“Our potential coming into the year was a lot higher than that. We started off well and over the past couple of years our team has had a tendency to finish strong. That’s the one thing that we didn’t do. We lost five of six games and obviously it’s disappointing. You wish you could do better, but all that is put behind us and now we have to focus on our bowl game. We are lucky we have a bowl game with the way we have been playing lately.
On the opportunity to play in a bowl game:
“It gives us another opportunity to try and turn this around and have a winning season. That would be great for us – great for our confidence going into next year. We just have to work hard, go back to square one and try to iron some things out.
On the quarterback change:
“We have a lot of confidence in Jake. It was evident with the Northern Illinois game. We felt fine with the switch. It was a little bit surprising, but the coaches have to make their decisions and with the way things were going for our offense, it couldn’t hurt to change things a little bit.”
Wide Receiver Trey Stross
On the disappointing season:
“A 6-6 isn’t a goal anybody sets when you start the season, so it’s definitely what we wanted. We still have one more game, and we just hope to end the season on a positive note.”
On going to a bowl game:
“A bowl game is an extra game. We love playing football. There is nothing better to ask for. It would have been great to get a better bowl if we would have won this game, but it’s still going to be fun. We’ll be ready.”
Defensive Back Miguel Merrick
On the play of Iowa’s defense:
“Turnovers happen. Whenever you give up 34 points to the other team, you can’t expect to win. If we held them to zero points, we win. They had way too many big plays on us today. You have to give credit to them. They came out and out-performed us.”
On the disappointing season:
“Nobody team wants to go out on this type of note. It is shocking because we had been winning, so it’s hard as a senior to know that you’re not going to go out on top.”
On finishing the season 6-6:
“It is what it is. We played like a 6-6 team, so we deserve to be a 6-6 team. You can judge us based on our performance. It was very average.”
On not getting off the field on third down:
“As a defense, you want to hold them to three-and-out. We got them on third-and-long a couple of times and then they got the first down, so it hurts because they’re moving the ball and keep gaining momentum off of it.”
On Minnesota’s interception at the end of the first half:
“You always want to go into halftime with the momentum, but we still felt like we had opportunities and we just didn’t execute.”
