Colorado State University Athletics
Postgame Quotes
9/5/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Colorado State head coach Mike Bobo
“I thought it was a good day today. The guys did what I wanted them to do, which was stay focused for 60 minutes. They had a good look in their eyes last night. They were focused. This morning was the same thing.”
(on the fast start)
“We came out here and started fast. We wanted to start fast. We were planning on taking the ball, but they chose to take the ball. To start with a defensive touchdown was great, and then to do what we did on the first drive, I thought was outstanding. We wanted to get it going with a little screen to Rashard and then start our fastest offense, which we call ‘Stampede.’ We did a good job of executing it.”
(on Kivon Cartwright scoring a TD in his first game back)
“On the last play of ‘Stampede’ we threw a touchdown to Kivon, which was awesome for him to come back and catch a touchdown pass. That was a great thing.”
(on the Rams’ overall play)
“Overall, I thought both sides of the ball played well. The turnovers on offense are one thing that we’ve got to correct. One of them was just poor ball security. The others were protection issues that we’ve got to get cleaned up. Any time you turn over the ball four times, you’re not going to win games.”
(on defensive play)
“Defensively, I thought we tackled well. I thought we played hard. We missed the one tackle and didn’t have enough guys rallying to the ball where the guy sped out for the long run, which was 60 or 70 yards. I love the way they finished. I talked about the guys that might get into the game, I want you to finish and play hard. You represent everybody out there. The defense had a couple bad breaks, the twos in there, but bowed their neck on two different occasions.”
(on CSU’s solid offensive finish to the game)
“The way the offense finished the game, running the ball, was good to see. Overall, good job and good effort. There’s going to be a lot to clean up. We’ve got to continue to get better every single day if we want to have a chance of winning next week.”
(on the pass-heavy game plan)
“We wanted to come out and throw the ball around against them. There are a lot of single-high, load-the-box, and try to get them gassed a little bit in this altitude. Then, after we lined up in a couple formations, they were playing what we call a Bear front, or 46 defense, the old Buddy Ryan, everybody’s covered. Blitzing a lot and kind of trying to stop the run. They were dead-set on us not running it to the weak side, blitzing the weak side. For us to run it, we would have had to get into the 22 personnel – two tight ends, two backs, like we did at the end of the game. I wanted to keep it spread out.”
(on the receivers and tight ends)
“Like I’ve been saying all year, the talent of our team I think is the receivers and tight ends, so you’ll probably see us in a lot of three-receiver sets and one tight end, one back, predominantly. But we’ll still get into the I [formation] like we did a couple times. That one drive, we were going to try to get in the I [formation] and try to run it, but J.O. [Jasen Oden Jr.] had the fumble and kind of made me upset, so I went back to throwing it.”
(on his first win as CSU head coach)
“It felt great. It felt great because those guys came out and did what I asked them to do and what the coaches asked them to do. Anytime you get a chance to play anything, I don’t care if it’s the first or the 50th or the 100th, I like to win. I like to compete. That was good. It was good to see the guys compete. It was good to see them come out in the second half, not with a lull, and start fast offensively. Like I told them last night, I’m 41, and 36 years probably, since I was five, I’ve sat in there and listened to the head coach talk, wondering what it’s like to be a head coach, how I’d feel. But it really ain’t about me. It’s about them. Them playing together and playing for each other, and I thought they did that today.”
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Savannah State head coach Earnest Wilson III
(on how he though the game transpired)
“It was disappointing. The reason being, even though I have all of these freshmen and sophomores, almost 80 of them, I feel like our execution wasn’t there. We have a lot of young people and they’re nervous, but like I told them, football is football. They (CSU) didn’t hit us hard enough, they didn’t run us over, we did it to ourselves and it’s time that Savannah State takes the next step. I think we can. I think we have the athletes to do it. We’re still working on our football IQ, but we just have to get better, and that’s the bottom line.”
(on whether he had run into CSU head coach Mike Bobo prior to today)
“No, but I’ve heard about him and I know about him. But no, we never really knew each other.”
(on his thoughts about Richard Williams’ 63-yard touchdown run)
“It was about time. What I’m telling people is that we have the potential to do this. That’s what we should be doing.”
(on whether he can Williams’ run and show his players they can perform like that consistently)
“There are a lot of plays that we can show them. Like the fake punt, the players believe it now, and now they’re ready to go to work. I told my coaches that we have to dissect this film. We have to watch this film. Not the cut-up version of the film, but everything that happened, from the sideline to on the field, and we will see a lot of things that we can improve upon and put our players in a better position to win.”
(on consecutive snaps by center James Livingston over quarterback Tino Smith’s head to start the game)
“He is a freshman center that was starting his first football game against a BCS guy. He actually came to camp as a walk-on. After those first two plays, he played well.”
(on center James Livingston starting the game)
“He earned the job. You will see great things from him in the future.”
(on what Savannah State can improve upon from this game)
“We are going to really have to watch that film. We’re going to have to do some things that we have never done before. I think I have a great coaching staff and a great set of players. I feel like we are just getting started. The previous years had a lot of situations that were beyond our control, and I think now we can start to control these situations.”
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Colorado State Players
Sophomore QB Nick Stevens
(on five players having receiving TDs from him in the game)
“It was a goal of ours to get as many people touches as we could this first game, get some guys some experience. I know Olabisi (Johnson) got his first touchdown, Coleman (Key) threw his first of his career, and I thought it was really good that we could spread the ball around and get guys touches.”
(on the first start of his career)
I wanted to come out and do what I could. I think it went well for the first game. I obviously made some mistakes and have some things to improve on for next week, but it went really well and I was happy with the performance today. I think I came in with a lot less nerves than what I thought I would have, and I think we did a good job of coming off fast and that got the nerves off everybody. I think that once you get that first play in, the nerves kind of go away. I think that being my first game, and my first start, personally I will get a lot better as we go.
Senior DB Kevin Pierre-Louis
(on today’s game)
“I thought the game went pretty good today. We came out fast, physical, and aggressive, and that’s the way the coaching staff wanted us to play. We did a good job, and we have a lot to work on, we have 48 hours then we are going to watch the film and focus on our next opponent.
Senior S Trent Matthews
(on today’s performance)
“Special teams we executed, offense we executed, and defense we executed. We faced adversity in all three spots and we challenged each other and we won, so we believe in ourselves and our coaches. We are going to watch film this week and getter better on specific things for next week.”
Junior WR Rashard Higgins
(on how the game felt)
“It felt great. Going into this game, we wanted to make a statement. We came out to play and we got up early.”
(on how he feels for head coach Mike Bobo after his first win)
“I’m happy he got his first win under his belt. There’s not a better way to come in with CSU and kick off vs. Savannah State, and put up - how many points did we put up - 65, man. There’s not a better way than being the head coach and playing the first game and getting 65 points.”
(on next week’s opponent, Minnesota)
“I saw them vs. TCU. I saw they had a pretty good defense. We’ll be prepared to play.”
(on if the offense had a good tempo coming out)
“I feel like we had a good tempo, but not good enough. I felt like a couple guys were winded. I was winded myself. I felt like we could have executed a lot more. It’s part of the game. We’ll watch the film and go over it and re-evaluate it, and see what we need to improve on.”
Senior DL Martavius Foster
(on the defense scoring 47 seconds into the game)
“That set the tone. We want more than just a fumble they had on the snap to get us going. We were ready to go either way. Them fumbling was just a mistake on their part, and we were able to capitalize on it, picking it up and getting it.”
(on if this was the day he wanted for the team)
“We just want to win. We don’t care about the stats and the accolades. We just want to win. (Coach Mike) Bobo came here to win a championship. We believe in him, and that’s what we want.”
(on playing his first game for head coach Mike Bobo)
“We love Coach Bobo. Everybody here will tell you they’ll run through a wall for him. To get the first win in the fashion that we did, it’s just awesome.”
(on if it’s nice to be a part of CSU’s 500th win)
“Yes sir. I didn’t even know that. That’s awesome. 500 wins, that’s crazy.”
(on how much it means to establish superiority right off the bat vs. Savannah State)
“We didn’t really look into the team. We focused on us. We always focus on us. If we get all our stuff right, and go through all our assignments, and play hard and run to the ball on defense and score points on offense, we can beat anybody. We’ve got a chance with anybody. There are times when lots of D-1AA teams beat big-time programs. I wasn’t here the last time that happened, but I know that before I got here they lost to a D-1AA team. Any team in college football has a chance. Nobody just wins games on paper. You’ve got to go out, you’ve got to put the ball down and you’ve got to play.”
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Savannah State Players
Sophomore QB Tino Smith II
(on outlook moving forward)
“The great thing about football is you have more than one game. Next week we can come and learn from our mistakes to bounce back in our next game. If we can eliminate all the mistakes we made today we will have a much better chance for a different outcome next week.”
(on playing a bigger, better teams)
“We really don’t look at that. We look at every team the same. We just want to go out each week and play our hardest.”
(on whether the team is seeing improvement in the little things)
“Absolutely, every game you improve in something. You know we have a lot of freshmen, a lot of sophomores on the team and they’re getting experience. So that goes into the category of improvement. That’s what coach always tells us, to get better every week.”
Junior RB Richard Williams II
(on his thoughts of breaking long touchdown run)
“It happened just like I thought it was going to happen. We had been running that play all week. I knew it was going to open up like that, everyone was blocking, doing their job, and we executed.”
(on player who missed tackle on the run he broke)
“One-on-one I feel like I can beat anyone. So when that happened, I just knew I had to be a man, man up and make it happen.”
(on confidence following today’s performance vs. CSU)
“Me personally, I feel like I am the best running back in the nation. No matter what level I’m on, I feel like I’m one of the best players in the nation. And it just showed that I am one of the best players in the nation because I can compete with anyone and everybody.”
(on when he knew it was a touchdown)
“Our coach always tells us to run hard, tuck it high, and get north. Once I broke the first tackle, and saw I had a wide receiver blocking 30 yards down the field, I knew it was going to be a touchdown. That’s one of the greatest things to see is a wide receiver blocking 30 yards down the field.”
(on what to take from this game)
“Just got to get better, take it one day at a time. Next week just execute on our Xs, Os, and our mishaps that we had this week. Just get better take it one day at a time.”
(on expectations coming into the game)
“You know they (CSU) had nice size just like we expected. They just executed better than us today. They were the better team today.”
Senior LB Leonardo Myers Jr.
(on impression on the game)
“As everyone says, we are a young group, but we know now the tempo of the game. We know what we’ve got to do on Tuesday when we go to practice. We know we’ve got to speed up the game, and I think we are ready. We’ve got a couple of young guys but I think overall we are ready.”
(on expectations coming into the game)
“They didn’t do anything we weren’t expecting. It’s just the simple fact that they played at a different tempo. Their tempo beat us today. Some teams have it and some teams don’t. We are just one of those teams that has to develop it. That’s what’s going to get us a win, and at the end of the day we’ve got to develop tempo.”