University of Memphis Athletics
Post Game Quotes
Sep 27, 2008 | Football
Sept. 27, 2008
Recap | Final Stats | Notes
September 27, 2008
Memphis 29, Arkansas State 17
Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Tommy West
"I'm obviously really excited for our guys. This is a good lesson because I felt like we were really close defensively and I feel like we've gotten better every week on defense.
We came out in the second half and listen to this: punt, punt, punt, punt, turnover, turnover, punt, out on downs.... against an offense that has been playing pretty good.
That's as good of a defense as I've seen around here in a long time. We did play decent in the first half, but our run defense got caught a couple of times. We got caught once on a screen and got caught a couple of times with the run game. I thought Tim (Walton) adjusted it again. Our kids made good adjustments, and we won the game defensively. We won the game by running the football. We weren't very good throwing it today. If we hadn't been able to run it, we weren't very good beating their defensive backs and we weren't very good throwing the ball. We ran the ball to win and that's what we were working on last week. That has been the emphasis for us and we won the game."
Is this game a breakthrough performance defensively?
"I hope. We'll see down the road. I've really felt like defensively that...the first game we played good defense except on the edges. Against Rice I thought we played good defense except in the last seven and a half minutes. At Marshall, we played really good defense, except the second and third play of the game. I felt like we have kept getting better and better and our kids are understanding what we're trying to do. I thought we made it really hard on their quarterback today throwing the ball and he is an outstanding player. He is as good of a quarterback as we've played against this year. He can bring them back, but when it came time today to make plays, we made the plays and that was the difference in the game."
From start to finish was this the best game that you have played?
This year by far. We finally finished one. I thought we played well against Rice up until the end, and then we fell apart. I thought we played good up at Marshall defensively except for the first touchdown. We held them to ten points. Overall, I thought this was our best game. Obviously you're really excited if you win, but I am really more excited about the improvements that we've made. We won this game in particular because we were able to run the ball. If we wouldn't have been able to run the ball like we did today...against Rice we get the ball back with six minutes and we couldn't clock it. Today, we get the ball back with 5:45 left and we were able to drive it and score. We had horrible field position in the third quarter. Offensively we just couldn't get out of it, but our defense just kept playing.
What was it like to get two field goals from back up kicker Vinny Zaccario?
"From my guy that nobody knew? I introduced him to the team. I swear to him that not everybody on our team knew who he was. I said 'that's the guy who kicked the field goal, guys.' Matt has a hip flexor that he got this week. We had anticipated that he would kick today, but he was way too sore in warm-ups and couldn't do it. Vinny did it for us and he came up huge. To come in under those circumstances, he did a fantastic job."
Arkansas State Head Coach Steve Roberts
"I'm obviously disappointed in the outcome of the game. I've got to give Memphis credit first. I've been telling you guys all week that they were two plays away from being 3-1. They did a good job today. They played very good football, and they deserve all the credit for this victory."
"I'm disappointed in our football team. We played passionate football for about 15-20 minutes of a 60 minute game, and then didn't wrap up when we had opportunities to make tackles. We didn't protect our quarterback; we didn't protect the ball. We had opportunities to make plays that we didn't make, but you have to give Memphis a lot of credit for that for the effort and passion they played with. They played better than we did."
On the offensive struggle in the second half
"We just shot ourselves in the foot several times with penalties and turnovers; just not being smart with the football and not blocking very well there through a stretch in the second half. Again, Memphis has a good football team, and they did some good things to keep us from being able to execute. But we didn't play the type of football that we're capable of playing."
On the Memphis running game
"That's part of their game plan. We saw that last week. They run the football very effectively. They really put you in a bind with those tall receivers with how many guys you can load up the box with. They did a good job staying on blocks, and I thought their back did a great job of finding holes, breaking tackles and making plays."
On emotion as a factor for Memphis after the last two years
"They did want it; there's no doubt. But we wanted it too. They played more passionate than we did. Definitely emotion is a huge part of college football."
On the Memphis defense compared to last year
"They're better. They did a great job of showing you several different looks in the secondary. I thought their front four,--I know they played seven, eight, maybe even nine in the front four--and they played fast and physical football. We were unable to stay on them at times."
