Memphis-FAU New Orleans Bowl Post-Game Quotes
Dec 22, 2007 | Football
Dec. 22, 2007
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R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl
Memphis vs. Florida Atlantic
December 21, 2007
Post-Game Quotes
Memphis Head Coach Tommy West
Opening Statement
I'm disappointed that we didn't do the things we needed to do to win. We thought we had to play special teams. We knew both offenses were talented, and we knew both offenses would score points. We felt we could win the game by playing special teams and giving ourselves the shorter fielder and them the longer field. We did just the opposite. They won in kickoff return and kickoff coverage; they won both of them.
We gave them field position, and then the blocked punt was the turning point I thought in the game. When the punt was blocked, that kind of took the air out of us. And then we lost our quarterback. We just kind of went down hill from there.
I thought our guys fought pretty hard and gave us a chance. I thought the touchdown right before the half was big to get us back into it and then we had the ball first coming out and made it 30-27. Then we had the next kickoff, and we didn't get it out to but the 10 yard line and the next one we had penalties. We didn't do what we needed to win. We had to play defense and we had to play special teams, and we didn't do either.
Can you talk about how hard it is to play catch-up with a team as good offensively as FAU is?
To be honest, that's the type of game I thought it would be. I thought it would be a back-and-forth game. Both these offenses are good. I really thought we'd play better defensively; I mean 30 points in a half I didn't anticipate. Our field positions from our kickoff cover was horrible. If you go back and look at their starting points in the first half, they started 40+ every time. We were bad. That's what we worked on, and so that's what's disappointing in this game. We knew that was a way we could win the game was to create field position, and we didn't do it.
Talk about the touchdown at the end of the first half.
I thought it was critical. We were trying to run the clock as much as we could to leave them with no time because we knew it would be that kind of game. It looked like at that time it would be who had it last would win the game. We've been in those kinds of games, and we're kind of built that way offensively. That touchdown was critical to get us back within 10 at that time because we were down 17.
Talk about what it means to be in your fourth bowl game in five years.
The one think you can't do, we're disappointed in losing the game, but I'm not going to let a loss in a bowl take away from what our senior class has done. Our seniors have taken our program to a place it's never been. We're awful proud of that. We're awful proud of what they have accomplished. I take my hat off to Florida Atlantic. They did a great job. To be honest, they deserved to win the game. But we're proud of where we are right now.
