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University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota - USC Postgame Quotes
9/18/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Minnesota (1-2) 21, Southern Cal (3-0) 32
Attendance: 50,442
Sept. 18, 2010
TCF Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn.
Minnesota Head Coach Tim Brewster
Opening Statement…
“It has been an extremely emotional day. We have a teammate who is battling cancer in the hospital. When we left the hotel this morning, we got a text message from a very sick young man. The text message said, ‘Shock the World. I love all you guys.’ It was from young Connor Cosgrove. Our football team wanted to really do something special today and they poured their hearts and their efforts into doing something special. There is great disappointment that we didn’t get the job done. I thought there were four or five defining plays within the game that USC made. Obviously the most critical play of the game was when we scored a touchdown and went up. We had this place really on fire and we gave up a kickoff return. We certainly didn’t execute the kickoff as well as we needed to and we didn’t allow our coverage to get down the field and get in position to make a play. We’ve just got to do a better job in that situation. We did a lot of good things. I thought we improved greatly. It was great to have Kyle Theret back in the lineup. We’ll keep improving defensively. We’ll keep getting better defensively and we’ll give ourselves a chance to win with what we’re doing offensively. I give our coaches a great deal of credit because I thought the plan was just outstanding. I thought the execution of the plan and the patience with the plan really gave us a chance. That’s all we were looking for against Southern Cal; a chance to win in the fourth quarter. We had a chance.”
On the facemask penalty…
“It was big. We got them tackled for a loss and that was one of four penalties we had on the day. Our kids are doing a good job there. I cannot fault our guy in that situation. He was trying to go sack the quarterback. He was trying to make a big play.”
Taking advantage of USC penalties…
“They helped us. What we wanted to make sure of was that we did not do anything to help them. Self-inflicted wounds hurt and we have done a pretty good job from that point of view. We took advantage of some situations where they helped us and other situations we didn’t. When they do something to help you, you have to take advantage of it, especially against a good football team.”
On Minnesota’s defensive play…
“It was certainly improved. We’ll keep improving. Like I said it was nice to have Kyle [Theret] back. I thought Kyle was really a settling influence on the back end with James Manual. James did some really good things today. Kyle did some good things. I thought we did a pretty good job against a potent passing attack.”
On USC’s running game…
“They certainly leaned on us in the second half with their run game. There is no question about that. We just have got to do a better job, and that’s a big offensive line and a heck of a big running back. They started leaning on us there a little bit. We have got to be able to stop the run. That is the whole key for us. That is premise on which we live by defensively. We did a great job in the first half stopping the run. Obviously they had a lot more rush-yards in the second half than I wanted them to have.”
Adam Weber
On breaking the touchdown record and what it means to him…
“Probably would have been a little better if we had won the game. It was one of those things that was bound to happen this season and it’s a good thing. But I know at the end of the game it doesn’t really mean much. I’m sure when I’m older I’ll appreciate it more but right now losing is getting a little old. It’s important keeping this group together and winning next week.”
On the kickoff returned for a touchdown following Minnesota’s touchdown…
“It hurts. We had a chance to get some momentum back, but I mean that’s part of football. There is going to be ups and downs, and they’re going to have their plays and moments, but it’s all about fighting through that. Too bad that happened, because we had some good momentum, but you know we went in there and scored some points on their special teams on their offense. I’m happy with how this team responded, but we still got another big team next week and then the Big 10 starts, so we got a lot to look forward to and a lot to stay positive about.”
On the similarities to last year’s Cal game…
“This game we had a lot of emotion, a lot of excitement going on in the game. We still felt very strong and positive about this team. Too bad there is only 60 minutes because how we fight and how we persevere as a team if we had a couple more minutes we could win a lot of these games. That’s the thing we have to take care of our business in 60 minutes and we’ll do that.”
MarQueis Gray
On his comfort level at receiver…
“As the weeks go on I feel more comfortable with myself and my ability to help the team get first downs and scores. So I feel comfortable with each and every week.”
On the need to build momentum in the fourth quarter…
“We’ve just fought all the way to the end and the game wasn’t over so we just had to go out there and score and we did. It didn’t hurt to have more and more momentum going into next weekend as we watch the game tomorrow.”
Ryan Collado
On having Kyle Theret back in the lineup…
“Kyle made a big difference. At least I thought the defense played a lot better. The communication was there. There was a lot of confidence in the back end. However, we just couldn’t make the plays at the end of the game to win the game. But having Kyle back really helped out. It helped the change, it helped having a couple freshmen back there and it was nice having another senior leader back there to help with the experience.
Kyle Theret
On Minnesota’s defensive game plan coming into the game...
“We knew we had to stop the run. That was our first objective. And once we stopped that we wanted to close the middle of the field and not let them get the deep balls. And for the most part we did a pretty good job. We had that one deep pass over the middle, but other than that I thought we thought we did a pretty good job closing the middle of the field and then towards the end of the game that’s when we started running out of minutes and that’s where we got to get a stop. We can’t let that happen.”
On not being able to beat ranked opponents...
“We have to finish. We have a lot of talent out there. We are starting to gel more and more each week. We get into big games, we keep it close, we keep it close, but then something happens and we fall off. One of our mottos this season is finish. We did it the first game, but if you want to win big games we have to win games in the fourth quarter. And so far we keep falling off in the fourth quarter and losing these big games. If we want to become a premier program we have to beat top 20 teams.”
On true freshman James Manuel and his performance on defense...
“James is doing well. Its tough to play as a true freshman and especially tough when you are a true freshman and you have a lot of other freshman out there- especially on your side. A lot of times its me and Collado on one side and him and Brock another freshman on the other. Considering that, James had a great day. He played much better than last week. He had a pick and forced fumble. Just that one play over the middle - he has to go deep on that. He know that. That was something he knows he had to do. It was a mistake that happens. But he keeps getting better and better each week.”
On losing getting old and fighting against the losses...
“For me it is not too hard. This is my senior season. You kind of don’t realize how much you love the game and how much you care for it on a daily basis until its coming to a close – at least this era. As a senior you come here to play big time college ball, and if you can’t get yourself ready each and every week to go out there and win and have the mindset that you are going to win then you shouldn’t be here. A lot of us came from winning programs and we just have a different mindset that just isn’t going through right now. We want to win very much and we are working very hard to win. We are getting better and better each week and we know that. It doesn’t really matter what outside people think. As long as we keep getting better each week the wins are going to start coming our way.”
DeLeon Eskridge
On the difference of running against USC compared to South Dakota...
“I wouldn’t say its too much of a difference. Just size is the difference. But with our line and our offense we try to focus on not caring who’s in dfront of is. We don’t put that into the prospective of it being USC. Whatrever team it is, we are going run into there D-line and just try to our part and work hard.”
On hitting a road block with not being able to use Duanne Bennett...
“Yea, definitely. Duanne, he works hard. I know this whole week coming up he is going to rehab. He is going to work hard and comeback strong next week.”
On taking the lead in the third quarter and losing it right away on the kick off...
“It just shows character to come out and be able to take the lead. We just have to finish. When we get up on opponents that are ranked, we just have to go and finish. This games shows that we can strive and work hard and hang with anyone other football team.
USC Head Coach Lane Kiffin
Opening Statement…
“It was good to get the win today. This has been two long road trips that we’ve gone on out of the first three weeks. We’ll go on another road trip next week. But I was pleased that we are 3-0 heading into conference play—3-0, which is the goal, always, to win every game that they let us play. I’m pleased with that. We obviously didn’t play perfect by any means. We played extremely poorly on offense early, especially. We played well on defense for most of the game there until the last drive with the back-ups. Our special teams was good again. It gave us a lift there with the 97-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. I’m disappointed with the turnovers on offense, especially the interceptions. Matt (Barkley) had gone through two games without any interceptions. To have two in one game, that would get us beat down the road playing tougher competition. We’re excited to be 3-0, but obviously we have a long way to go and a lot of stuff to work on.”
On going to more running plays in the second half…
“We’d like that to be our personality. You know never know when it’s going to be during a game. Sometimes it’s early, sometimes it’s late. We weren’t clicking as well as we’d like prior to that. We had a few big plays, but were not very consistent. We were putting ourselves in long yardages with some very crucial penalties. It was good to see our line respond. It was good to see the backs, especially Allen (Bradford), and C.J. (Gable) ran hard at the end, too. You’re going to have games like that especially on the road, things start not going your way, you kind of need to rely on the ground game. That’s the first time we’ve done that out of three games. At least we know it’s there as part of our offense.”
On the failed two-point conversion attempts…
“It kills some momentum. But there are certain looks on our two-point conversions where we’re going to go for it. They’re not all going to work, but we’d like to think that when we make those decisions the percentages are in our favor. That’s why we’re making the decision. Like anything in football, it doesn’t always go as planned.”
Southern California Players
WR Robert Woods
On the momentum shifting kickoff return for a touchdown:
“It helped the team. It picked us up, and it helped the team get going…..I knew I had it when I first hit the hole, from the first block you could tell it was open right away.
QB Matt Barkley
On USC’s solid running game:
“The running game was on fire. Marc Tyler and even C.J. Gable there at the end, and they were hitting the holes hard. That is what you need when the passing game isn’t working. It is good to know you can rely on a solid running game like we have. I’m Proud of the guys and how we did, we didn’t stop untill the end.”
On having Time in the pocket
“When we had to I had time back there to make some big plays. We still have things to correct in the run and passing game. There are always things to get better at and correct as an offense, but overall to put 32 points on the board as a team, we should have had 35 points given those missed [2-pt conversions], but 32 points against this team is good.”
On feeling like this game is a win:
“Yes, it does feel like a win, I’m not completely satisfied with this just because of the offensive production, but yes it does feel good to win like this and singing the fight song in the locker room was great.. It was still not a complete game, but we’re working on improving in all areas of the game. This week we are going to Pullman [Wash] so we will try to work on that.
DT Jurrell Casey
On stopping the Gophers’ running game
“Yeah, the whole week we talked about that they were going to run the ball down our throat, so all week we talked about stopping the run and making big plays in the backfield.”
What USC Run game did well and the Gophers’ persistence to run the ball:
“We made sure everyone had their gap and their right assignments”… “We were real surprised they kept running the ball, we thought that they would go to the air, but if they keep running we’re going to keep stopping them.”
