Colorado State University Athletics
Postgame quotes
10/2/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 2, 2010
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CSU Head Coach Steve Fairchild
Opening statement: “All the credit in the world goes to TCU. They are a very good football team, and they deserved to win that game. I thought our football team stood in there and played well in the first half, particularly keeping them out of the end zone, but we were just inept offensively with three-and-outs. We weren’t even getting guys in and out of the huddle the right way. When you play that poorly offensively, it wears your defense down and gives them a lot of snaps and a lot of opportunities to do what they do. Eventually, we broke down. They’re a very good football team, and we’ve got a lot of work to do, obviously on the offensive side of the ball. We’ve got to get it done in a hurry because we go to Air Force next week.”
On feeling good defensively going into halftime: “No question, we kept them out of the end zone, we were tackling well, even putting a little pressure on the quarterback. But, we had to burn timeouts offensively. We just couldn’t get in and out of the huddle properly. When you play that poorly—I believe we had seven three-and-outs—and couldn’t get a first down coming out of halftime, you put the defense right back out there on the field, and like I said, you just don’t want to play that many snaps defensively, particularly against a good team like TCU.”
On whether the deep passes by QB Pete Thomas were missed routes by the wide receivers or poor passes: “We didn’t put the ball down the field very often. We missed a seven-route to Marquise (Law) that was close, and I also thought we overshot (Lou) Greenwood on one, but again, not a lot of snaps offensively; they shut us down pretty good.”
On Thomas’ lack of comfort in the pocket: “He’s got to get a little better pocket presence, because it’s not always a free guy. There’s times where it’s a guy leaning off of an offensive lineman, and you just have to feel with the move and still keep your eyes downfield and throw. He’ll get better. He’s a talented kid, and will be fine, but there were some times where he probably could have hung in there and made a throw.”
On the status of injured players: “On Raymond Carter, it is a knee injury. They’re checking him out; I don’t think it’s a severe thing, but I think he will miss some games. Scott (Albritton) I’m not sure on. Terry (DeZeeuw) and the doctors will check him out again today, check him out tomorrow. As soon as we know something, we’ll make an announcement.”
On what he thought the team did well: “We played defense well. I thought we contained them for the most part until we kind of just broke down in the second half. I thought we did some nice things defensively.”
On TCU’s success running the option, and what that means heading to Air Force next Saturday: “They had a couple option plays, and most of their operation on third down involved some of that stuff. It was more of the zone read in the second half, where the quarterback was carrying the ball and making runs.”
On TCU’s adjustments coming out of halftime: “I think they did, but I think it had more to do with the number of snaps. Any time you give an offense that many opportunities with our three-and-outs, they’re going to have a lot of snaps to try things and figure things out. It’s a lot easier to call a 75-play game than it is a 55-play game. We let them keep going out there and having those opportunities. That’s putting our defense in a very bad situation.”
On the frustration of being shut out: “It is what it is. I’m frustrated with a loss; I could care less about the points. If we win it’s good, and if we don’t, we’ve got a lot of work to do. We need to fix things offensively pretty quickly.”
On the wind affecting the passing game: “No. No, the wind didn’t affect anything. I told (TCU Head Coach) Gary (Patterson) after the game that we could have played until midnight and we wouldn’t have scored.”
TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson
General Comments: “Down the road if we play that way in a place like Utah, we aren’t going to win a conference title. When you go on the road you’ve got to have attention to detail. You’ve got to score touchdowns, not field goals. But we did what we needed to do. Defensively we played a lot better today. We played some good offenses in the first four weeks – at least three of them. So we’re very happy about where we’re at right now. We’re glad anytime we can go on the road and win. You’ve got to give a lot of credit to Colorado State’s defense. I thought they played hard. They did some things scheme-wise that really bothered us in the first half. We made some adjustments, came out and made some good plays. You’ve got to find a way to win on the road. This is the biggest win we’ve had coming to Colorado in the last couple of years, also the one that had the most sunshine. “
On the TCU rushing attack: “Well, you know, we can run the football. We’ve got good backs. Andy does a good job with the reads and everything else. Bottom line to it is: You’ve got to score points. Yards don’t make any difference. We did what we needed to do today. They know that they’ve got to play better, they know what it’s all about, and we’ll get ready to go.”
On the effect of injuries on TCU: “We didn’t bring a couple guys. We didn’t bring Alex Ibiloye, our starting weak safety. We had some guys banged up. Jake Kirkpatrick, our starting center, wasn’t 100 percent. There were other guys like that, but I was pretty proud of the guys that stepped up to play. The hard part about that is when you come on the road, you only bring 64 in this league so you’ve got to get ready to play, but overall I was happy with our production.”
On defense being compared to last year: “I don’t know. Every game is different. We’re just trying to win ballgames. I’ve talked about attention to detail. We were better, except in that last drive, we turned a couple receivers loose underneath in our coverage; we didn’t pass them off. But we’ve got to get better.”
On defensive strategy during the game: “We did what we did. We man-blitzed, we zone-blitzed, then we played base defense and changed coverages. But they did what they needed to do. Their starter was out for the day, then we saw their running back come out early in the game so they had to start throwing the ball a lot more when they got behind, but we played them about the same.”
On RB Ed Wesley: “Just a lot more toughness. Last year he was an outside runner. This year he’s been a guy that’s actually gone inside to get yards and actually taken some hard hits. And he’s only a sophomore so we’re really excited. All of those guys are younger guys who sought more reps. You’re going to have a younger quarterback next year when Andy graduates, so we’ve got to have running backs ready to run the football and we need to have an offensive line. So we’ll see how everybody develops in the next seven ballgames.”
On what he noticed from his defense’s performance: “A lot better accountability. We were giving up a couple of easy touchdowns, which we haven’t done the last couple of games. But we have to play hard. That’s the biggest thing is to play hard. We’ve got to keep trusting each other. We kept rotating guys, especially up front and it helped.”
On RB Matthew Tucker: “Good. I don’t know what kind of yards he had or anything but when they come in and they do the job, the thing I like is how hard he ran on the one play on the sideline. He ran through a tackle. Those are the things you like to see a bigger back do, which I didn’t think he did a year ago.”
On dropped passes: “The first rule of offensive football is don’t stop yourself and then you move on. We were stopping ourselves. I told them, there just has to be more attention to detail when you go on the road because you don’t have the crowd around, you don’t have all of those other things that get you pumped up. You’ve got to do it yourself and we didn’t do a good job of that early in the game.”
On running game carrying the offense: “That’s our deal. We run the football. We play great defense. And with a senior quarterback we’ve been able to throw the football. I was glad to see Andy break the record; he got his touchdown but those things don’t really make much difference to me until after the end of the season. Then you worry about them.”
On missing open receivers in the first half: “Well both of them were against the wind. He didn’t do a good job. It’s hard to be a quarterback. It’s about like how I hit my 9 iron: One day I hit it great, the next day it’s shanked. I wish I could tell you why.”
On complacency worries with three home games coming up: “I don’t think so. We have a lot of goals. One of the goals, even for myself before the season, I wanted to get to 90 wins before I got to 30 losses as a staff. We started out 85-27, now we’re 90-27. We set short-term goals. For us as a team, we wanted to be the winningest senior class in the history of the school, which they can do that if they go undefeated. They’ve got to win 12 ballgames to do that. We set goals besides just national-rank goals.”
On win earning style points in BCS system: “I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about it. I’m just glad we won. I haven’t seen any other ballgames. Last week everybody thought it wasn’t enough style points against a really good SMU team and nobody else had any, either. As close as it is in college football, you need to make sure that you go win, because that’s the only thing we have control over. We don’t have control over the audience, the media, or anybody else that decides all of that other stuff. We’ve just got to go win. The great part about it is when you don’t play your best football and you still win ball games. I think we only played one ballgame that was a complete ballgame and that was the Baylor game. I’m talking about all three phases. If we can get to where we can do that, keep blowing guys up, we’re going to give ourselves an opportunity to be very successful at the end of the year.”
CSU players
WR Lou Greenwood
On whether scoring early helps the offense get into rhythm: “Yes. I feel like if we score early or even after halftime, it’s a completely different ballgame. I feel like we were gaining momentum and the momentum flipped for them and didn’t flip for us. I feel like if we can connect on a few deep balls, the game can go a different way.”
On the offense’s game plan, whether CSU wants to hit deep balls: “Yeah, we do. We are going to keep working and I feel like it’s not going to be long before we get one. Maybe next week, maybe the week after but we are going to get it when it counts.”
On TCU’s defense: “They are by far the best that we have played, but they are not perfect. I feel like we needed that going into conference. Now, we have faced the best. That was a pretty good test for us.”
CB Shaq Bell
On what the defense can take from this game: “We can build off of it because the defense played a good game the first half. In order for us to start winning, we have to play good the whole game.”
On how the defense felt after the first half: “We were encouraged. We were playing good. I felt like if we could stop them and make the offense get the ball and a touchdown, we could win this game.”
On whether he is getting into the flow of the game more with increased reps: “I am used to it now; there are no more nerves. I know I can play at the coaches’ level.”
On the remaining competition: “Yeah, I feel like we can play with any team. We just have to play as a unit and play good the whole game, throughout the game, for four quarters.”
LB Ricky Brewer
On TCU’s adjustments at halftime: “They didn’t make many adjustments. The adjustment that we made was not being as physical as we were in the first half. If you look at the first half, that was some of the best tackling that we have had all season. Unfortunately, we were not able to deliver the same intensity and the same impact and physicality that we did in the first half.”
On how he felt after holding TCU to six points in the first half: “That was a moment of excitement. Running off that field, Hughes Stadium was loud and pumping, and a big contributor that first half was that we had the student section behind us and that all comes with making plays. If you get the crowd involved, they can be on your side real quick.”
On how frustrating it is for the defense, when the offense does not score points: “They were frustrated, we were frustrated, and everyone was frustrated. The key is that we have to keep fighting. We have to deliver more opportunities for our offense to score. We are not getting the amount of turnovers that we need to have the kind of season that we want. We need to be more physical and force fumbles and get some more interceptions.”
QB Pete Thomas
On whether a big play would have changed the momentum: “Definitely. We had what we wanted in terms of what they were doing on offense and Coach (Fairchild) called a great play and we just didn’t connect. On offense we played terrible today.”
On the passes in which no receivers were in the area of the thrown ball: “On a few of them, they (TCU) went cover zero and you have to get the ball out of your hands. We will get that miscommunication corrected this week.”
On neither quarterback completing many passes in the first half: “It was pretty windy. It was blowing west to east or something like that. It was pretty windy out there but you cannot use that as an excuse. We just didn’t play our game today on offense.”
On the lack of running game: “It was not just that we couldn’t run the ball. We couldn’t pass the ball, either. We just couldn’t do anything on offense and you have to give them credit. The offensive line played real well today, and you cannot ask for a better game from them.”
On facing a top-rated defense: “They were real good, obviously. They had real good athletes. We didn’t play our game on offense and we couldn’t move the ball against these guys. We didn’t play our game.”
P Pete Kontodiakos
On whether he thought he would ever punt that much in a game: “We played these guys last year and I had nine. We came in preparing for that.”
On punting away from Jeremy Kerley: “I didn’t perform to my ability today. Our coverage team did a darn good job.”
TCU Players
MLB Tanner Brock
On what was working for TCU defensively: “Our scheme; our coach came up with a great scheme. Colorado State is a heavy-running team and we planned for that and it ended up working out.”
On TCU’s offense: “Last week, they were putting up points and we were giving up points, and this week we ended up stopping them (CSU) a couple times just so they could get rolling, and it kind of works like that. Give a little bit, take a little bit.”
QB Andy Dalton
On halftime adjustments: “Well, we kind of knew what they were doing, we just had to go out and execute it. And we just did a lot better job of that in the second half.”
On his many career milestones: “I’m not really noticing that; it’s not really something that I focus on or think about. I mean it’s a good honor to get all the different things but it’s not what I’m focused on.”
On TCU’s running game: “The running game has done well all year, and it kind of sets up the passing game. When the passing game wasn’t working well, the running game was, and that’s how we have to have it.”
On WR/KR Jeremy Kerley: “We find ways to get him the ball, whether it be in the passing game or the running game. And he’s also doing an unbelievable job in the return game. He’s a dominating player and we can do a lot with him.”
On focusing on short-term goals being a No. 5 team: “We know they all count one. The end goal, we know what it is, and we take each game one game at a time.”
On Wyoming next week: “They’re a good team; we have to go prepare. We’ll get ready for them tomorrow.”
On TCU’s defense: “It’s awesome to have a defense like ours, especially coming out and holding them to a shutout; that’s pretty tough to do. Our defense did a great job today.”
WR Jimmy Young
On sluggish offense in the first half: “We just had to focus in, and once we got focused in I feel like we focused well.”
On his touchdown: “It was a play that we had practiced all week; when the safety came down, I just went straight upfield and was wide open. We just executed well and we scored off of it.”
TB Ed Wesley
On big difference in the second half: “The pep talk from Coach P. Coach P. pretty much just said how it needed to be said; we have to stop starting off slow, and he said that we have to beat those guys up. Physically we were better than them, and that’s when we started running the ball.”
On TCU’s running game: “It’s all because we have an older group of offensive linemen; we’ve got two All-Americans, and when they get up there and they have something in mind that they want to do, it’s pretty hard to stop them.”
On being compared to LaDainian Tomlinson: “It’s pretty crazy to me. I grew up as a LaDainian Tomlinson fan. Anywhere mentioned with his name is pretty awesome to me. LaDainian is the greatest player to ever play at TCU, and the fact that someone would even place my name in the same sentence as his just makes me feel so happy.”
On being off in the first half: “Really this is only our second away game, and we just had to get in the groove of playing away from our fans, and just we really have to pump each other up, lean on each other, and get going faster.”
On first game away from Texas: “Yeah, it’s just a different environment, and it’s just getting used to that. Next time we play away we will have it instilled in our minds that we won’t let it happen again, so that will be a learning tool.”
On TCU’s defense pulling the weight the first half: “I mean, it’s TCU defense. It’s always been like that, and it’s probably always going to be like that. Really we just have to come out faster offensively; we have to come out with the mindset that we’re going to score every time.”
