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University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota-Kent State Postgame Quotes
9/19/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Jerry Kill, Minnesota Head Coach
"The No. 1 thing is, we won. Our defense again played outstanding. Those will be the two things that I take away from it. Pete Mortell did a nice job punting the football. Again, we won, and that's all that matters at the end of the day."
On the Gophers' blocking...
"Until I watch, I hate to comment on things, because then you do and you say something you regret. I just know that we didn't play very well up front. We've had injuries, and we had three tight ends out. But at the end of the day those are excuses. Whoever we put in there has got to do the job. We didn't give our backs much opportunity to run, and you've got to be able to run the ball. ..Evidently we didn't do a good enough job coaching, and I'll take responsibility for that. I'm the head coach. We've got to look at the film and just keep working."
On Minnesota's defense, which did not allow a point...
"They're playing very well, and we're playing without two very good safeties. We played without a defensive tackle today. Three injuries, and the defense stepped up and still played. There's no excuses. When you get banged up, you've got to be able to still play. The defense still played. Those kids have done a great job, and I'm proud of them. As long as you play good defense you've got a chance. We've just got to do a better job executing (on offense)."
#9 Alex Keith, Defensive Line
On what you tell your offensive teammates to bring them up…
"We just tell them to step it up. I mean, we've been there before. So, basically just tell them to keep it going, and we've got to put some points up."
On his personal game…
"I just had one of the best games I've had so I mean hopefully I can just go up from here."
#1 K.J. Maye, Wide Receiver
On would you have liked to see a little more aggressiveness on play calls…
"Yeah, of course. That's something that I don't get too much into with what coaches call. We just got to trust what they're doing. We have to execute what they call."
On how does the offense regroup from their frustration today…
"The frustration just came from not executing well, that's all. So we go back to practice and watch film and get better at correcting the mistakes that we made."
#11 Antonio Johnson, Defensive Back
On can your team get any better on defense…
"Yeah, we can always get better. There's always improvements and adjustments that we can make. And there's things that happen throughout the game that we figure out that we can adjust even during a game. So, we try to fix those mistakes that we see in the first half, and come out in the second half and be even better."
On how the defense is feeling after their performance today…
"We feel great. We set a standard to get a shutout so we met our goal and we're happy about that. You don't get too many shutouts in college football so we take pride in that."
On how to respond to today's game and the overall mood of the team…
"We struggled a little bit but at the end of the day our goal is to win so we're happy because that's what we come here to do. We come here to win and we accomplished our goal.
Paul Haynes, Kent State Head Coach
Opening Statement...
"Disappointing just because we're so close, but super proud of this team in all phases for coming out this is a tough place to come and play. Tough opponent and very well coached football team. So proud of our guys and the way they fought in there. Disappointing because we didn't win and we're coming so close but where we've come from week one to right now we've made a bunch of strides. We just have to continue to make strides to clean up the things we have to clean up. The effort is awesome that we're given by a lot of different guys.
Decision on the first series to go for it on fourth down...
"That's kind of our mentality right now. In certain situations and certain parts of the game we talk about having a fearless attitude. We're making decisions based off of gains and not losses. We came in here to win not to play passive and we're going to go for it in those situations in the future. In time once we get down then those decisions are a little bit different but based off the score and based off the field position those are game-by-game, series-by-series, or play-by-play decisions."
4th Quarter, 10 minutes to ago had fourth down and short were you thinking about going for it...
"No. Just because we're still down by three I didn't want to put the defense in a bad situation of us not making a play or giving them a short field and we were playing well defensively that I was confident we could get a three and out."
Thoughts on DT...
"The great thing about it is if you look from week one to week three he was challenged in week one and gave up a couple and it's good to see him bounce back and those are things him and Coach Poteat worked on in practice and it's always good when as a coach you can sit there and talk about him but when you see the work that you put into it and it comes to fruition that they start believing. This is a game that we prepared like crazy we had a good game plan and just ended up a little short but when we play the type of football we can play good things can happen we just have to continue to clean up the penalties. Penalties are killing us right now and we had a couple of drives that were going on and we get a couple penalties and they stall."
Thoughts on Gophers Defense...
"I think they are playing very well. They had a lot of confidence too and then you have to play against the second team in the country and then Colorado State is a hard place to go out and play. So they are playing with a lot of confidence right now and they are going to do a good job but our defense did well too against a quality offense that has put up points on some good teams. I'm sure Coach Kill is proud of his guys and I'm proud of my team too."
Demetrius Monday: Cornerback, Kent State (FR)
On his strip/fumble recovery for a TD...
"Earlier that week and throughout getting prepared for the season we worked a lot on takeaways. We did certain drills that just made it happen. We brought the practice into the game and it just happened. I just thought I gotta score. I gotta do something with it. I can't just look at it and then fall. It all happened off of preparation and I would like to thank the coaches for installing stuff like that in practice. It helped a lot."
On his two interceptions...
"We talked about technique a lot and I believe that's what made it what it was. When you think about it, it all boils down to how you prepare and if you talk about technique, technique, technique we just came to play."
