Colorado State University Athletics
Postgame Quotes--CSU 49, New Mexico 31
11/20/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
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POSTGAME QUOTES
Colorado State 49, New Mexico 31
Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016
**Final game at Sonny Lubick Field at Hughes Stadium**
COLORADO STATE HEAD COACH Mike Bobo
(opening statement)
“Really just an awesome night; for our community, for our university, for every Rams fan that has ever witnessed a game here, for any player that has ever played, a lot of memories in this stadium. I know I have only been here through two seasons but I talked to our team all week about what kind of big responsibility we had. It was senior night, we had 19 seniors, and it was a lot of emotions when senior night comes around for your team and for being the last game at Hughes Stadium, a lot of emotion there. [We] challenged our guys. After a disappointing loss last week on the road to do our job and to handle it with excellence and prepare with excellence and really proud of our coaches and our players with how they responded and came out here and played the type of football that I expected us to play week-in and week-out. I think it was a great showing by our fans. I love seeing the student section full. We are moving into a new stadium, that is how it should be every week. We need to start a new tradition of selling out every football game but great win, great team win. I thought we played well, thought we played hard, played physical, we won the line of scrimmage and that is what you have to do in this league to win football games.”
(on the rushing game)
“I did not think we would hit 412 yards rushing, but I felt good about our rushing plan. They are a big pressure team. We knew coming into the game we were not going to be in a lot of ‘11’ personnel or a lot of open sets. We prepared our kids for that. [I] told those receivers that it is going to be one of those games where we are going to play a lot of two-receiver sets, a lot of one-receiver sets that have two tight-ends attached so we could protect both the edges and try to set walls in the run game. I thought our coaches offensively did a great job coming up with a great game plan. Nick (Stevens) did a great job of executing and getting us in the right play. Early in the game, they were doing some stuff different, we were able to make adjustments on the run right there in the middle of the game and set walls and crease them. Our offensive line played outstanding. Our tight ends and fullbacks, which they are the same guys with Nolan (Peralta) playing fullback, did a great job and our backs ran extremely hard. That is how Izzy Matthews has got a run in this league. Dalyn Dawkins was hitting the creases and then everybody say what kind of speed Marvin Kinsey has when he gets in the open field. And then you have threats out there at receiver. I felt like we could throw it as well to Gallup but being able to control the line of scrimmage and control some of the clock in the first half was huge. I know in the second half, we scored so fast we probably lost a time of possession there. But really just a great job of executing the game plan by our guys tonight.”
(on how important this game was with bowl eligibility on the line)
“It is important. We did not reach all of our goals this year and the year is not done but that was one of our goals. And to qualify for a bowl and be bowl-eligible and have a chance to play two more games with this football team and these seniors and to continue to develop what we are trying to build here is an opportunity for us that we have to take advantage of. The main thing we talked about all week and today was what we need to do. Not New Mexico, not bowl-eligibility, we need to come out here and play hard for 60 minutes and play physical and our guys played extremely physical tonight.”
(on the last night at Hughes Stadium)
“I think it was a pretty amazing scene at the end of the game with everybody on the field and shutting off the lights. I got to go up top and shoot the cannon. But to sit up there and watch the people celebrating and enjoy the moment; like I said at the beginning of the week, our part and my part and this team’s part was to play the way that we needed to play to honor this stadium and it was good that we came out and played that way and it was great to see the fans, alumni and everybody that loves Colorado State get to savor the moment on a really special night. I told our players all week, this place is special because of the memories that people have here, watching football games. You are the last memory that these fans are going to be able to see at Hughes Stadium and we have to put on a show and I thought we did tonight.”
(on the defense)
“I thought we did a great job. I thought we were physical, running to the football. We changed up some different things, how we were playing the quarterback when they tried to get the ball to the perimeter, we slow-played it at times. We made them declare faster at times, but you saw guys getting off the block. One guy that comes to mind right off the bat early in the game is Jamal Hicks. Making his first start as a true freshman being able to get off blocks and make plays, it was good to see. Arjay Jean running down from the back side, we saw back-side support and we did a great job on first-down early on in the game and got them in long-yardage situations and got them out of a rhythm. Offensively we were able to score and went to a passing attack, which is a little bit surprising, but I thought it was in our advantage when they did that. I know they ended up with 31 points but I thought we dominated physically at the line of scrimmage and played more physical than them.”
(on importance of making New Mexico a one-dimensional team)
“There’s no question. The main thing you want to do when you play an option football team is to get them in long-yardage situations, stop their first-down runs. Usually when you play an option team, it’s five or six yards and becomes 2nd-and-3, or 2nd-and-2. They have the advantage but we were able to keep them in long-yardage situations. My message to the defense was embrace this opportunity this week. We were all embarrassed by what happened last week. ‘What better challenge than having the No. 1 rushing team in the country come to your house and you have that chance to embrace that challenge?’, and I thought our guys did. I wanted us to attack. I didn’t want us to be on our heels reacting to what they did…I wanted us to force the issue and our guys did tonight.”
(on three running backs eclipsing 100-yards rushing)
“We are becoming more comfortable as a football team. The guys are understanding what we are doing. We are playing really well offensively. Those backs (Dalyn Dawkins, Marvin Kinsey, Jr., and Izzy Matthews) are a part of that. It’s really the whole team but we are doing a great job of being balanced. We weren’t as balanced tonight but they’re taking advantage of their opportunities. It’s always good when you have the chance to set school records. We set one last week but it’s better when you win the football game. I am just proud of our guys on how we finished. I was proud of how we finished that last drive and ran out the clock. I know the game was in hand but that’s how you want to finish a game…on the field, running the football.”
(on Marvin Kinsey’s performance and making people miss)
“He made that guy miss and that counts. He made him miss and showed his track speed and put on the after-burners. He has a chance to be a very good back for us. He’s immature at times. He’s a young kid that’s exciting but we have to reign that in a little bit, but at the same time I don’t want him to lose his competitive spirit, his love of the game and how he plays. It’s contagious. I told our guys ‘It only takes one guy ready to answer the call then it becomes contagious on our football team.’ I thought a lot of guys answered tonight with the responsibility they had and it became contagious. I saw guys out there having fun. I saw us striking people on defense which was fun to see.”
(on the progress made since first game vs Colorado)
“That Colorado team is a pretty good football team as we’ve seen, and we had a lot of new faces but that’s no excuse. What you want as a football coach is you guys to keep believing week in and week out with what you are doing as a coach and believing in each other. If you continue to work, you improve and I think if you look at our football team, you are seeing a team that has improved week in and week out. It hasn’t always been pretty and it hasn’t always resulted in a ‘W’ but what we can control is how we wake up the next day and go back to work. Those guys have done that and I’m really proud of them. I want us to finish strong. I want us to finish off this season the right way. We have a big, big challenge next week in playing one of the best teams in this conference and one of the best players in this country (Donnel Pumphrey of Sand Diego State). Our guys will be ready for the challenge.”
(on the changes made on defensive personnel for this game)
“We started two true-freshmen. Jamal Hicks and Arjay (Jean) started and I am not sure if Toby (McBride) started but those two started and were in our base package. We want to get athletic guys out there at defensive end and Arjay is a raw kid as well but you have seen him progress throughout the year. He is going to keep getting better. He’s a great kid and works extremely hard. He’s getting tougher every day at practice and every week. They’ve done a great job at challenging Jamal. He has been progressing and waiting his turn. He had an opportunity tonight with (Jake) Schlager’s injury and he responded. That’s what you want. I talk about it all the time that you want to build depth. You want to be able to have when one guy goes down…the next guy could step up and that depth is good for team morale and it is good for competition. It’s going to continue to make us better and we are going to continue to improve this depth on this football team through recruiting. (Justin) Sweet was back at alley and Braylin (Scott) at nickel. Jamal played one of the rovers with an eight-man front and played with the outside ‘backers. It was him or Tre Thomas or Kiel Robinson on the other side.”
(on talking to former players or coaches before the game)
“Coach (Tom) Ehlers told me about the gathering they were having and I said ‘just make sure I have the chance to say thank you to those guys.’ The new stadium that’s being built…they laid the foundation for that stadium and just let them know there have been a lot of coaches at this university and sometimes those players feel like they can’t come back because they don’t know people on the staff, but let them know they are always welcome. They are always a Ram and part of this family. No, I didn’t coach them. No, I didn’t recruit them, but I want them to be a part of what is going on now at Colorado State. I say it all the time ‘It’s not my football team, it’s their football team.”
(on getting doused after the game)
“They missed me a little bit. They kind of surprised me but they kind of missed. I was already numb. I am from South Georgia and it was a little cold for me tonight. I’m glad the wind wasn’t blowing.”
(on Josh Lovingood’s injury)
“We think it’s just a knee sprain. I don’t know how serious but he was more scared then anything. We’ll examine him tomorrow and probably know on his injury on Monday.”
COLORADO STATE PLAYERS
OL Jake Bennett
(on being life-long CSU fan, Denver-area kid, and playing here in final game at Hughes Stadium)
“Yeah, I think for a lot of guys it meant a lot, and I was just trying to take it all in and not really lose focus but be in the moment. It was really fun. To get the win it means the world and a lot of people were coming up and just saying how thankful they were. It just goes to show how much this means to a lot of people.”
(on whether he took a moment to take in the scene before he went into the locker room)
“I tried to soak it all in. I tried to enjoy it with friends and family, and just an awesome night.”
(on if he was able to turn this night into some positive energy for the team)
“I think guys were also feeding off last week’s disappointment and really wanted to get back out there and play and all this stuff was going on, we had senior night, last game here, we needed this to get to a bowl, so there was a lot on the line. I think guys just came out and played hard which I think you saw.”
(on 412 rushing yards tonight)
“That’s pretty awesome. You get three guys with 100 yards that is something special. I think it shows you the pride we take in getting guys in the end zone.”
(on how satisfying is it to reach bowl eligibility)
“I think it is a point of pride everyone takes here, something that pretty much everybody but the senior class has missed one. I think the goal from here on out is to not only get into one but keep moving up into bigger and better bowls.”
DB Justin Sweet
(on how impressed he was between defense last week and this week)
“It was really nice to see everybody had a pretty big chip on their shoulders after the embarrassment we had last week. We had some guys step up real big tonight, Jamal (Hicks), Arjay (Jean) starting, two true freshmen. It was good to see everyone hustling out there and making big plays so that was really good.”
(on being better at getting off the perimeter)
“Really impressed. That was a big thing for us this week. That’s what coaches emphasized on, getting our blocks, playing physical, not letting the ball on the perimeter, we really took that to heart and tried to make that happen this week.”
(on whether he took a moment to look around and take in the moment as it was the last game at Hughes)
“Yeah it was pretty cool. After the game with all the fans on the field, turning the lights off, it was pretty cool to see. I’m glad we could send it out the right way with a win.”
(on four years in a row being bowl eligible, how important that is and what does it mean to this program)
“It is real big. I think a big thing for everybody coming into the season is they want to make it to a bowl game so being able to do that four years in a row is huge. Hopefully we take it to a next step, take it to a bowl, get a win, keep progressing every year.”
RB Dalyn Dawkins
(on big plays unfolding in the rushing game tonight)
“It was great. That was exactly what we needed. Just big play after big play, that is what we needed.”
(on how nice was it to close out this stadium with this kind of a win)
“It was great. We had a huge emphasis on that this week, to send off our seniors the right way and send off the stadium the right way too.”
(on how he felt about the fans rushing the field after the game)
“They grabbed me, shaking me, and smacking me in my head a lot. I thought I was concussed after that. It was great.”
WR Michael Gallup
(on how nice it was to see three running backs run for more than 100 yards)
“That didn’t surprise me. I know what they can do. They showed it off tonight and I’m proud of every single one of them.”
(on how far the team has come since the first game)
“We’ve come a long way. Coach Bobo told us the other day that this is the most improved team he has ever had. I think that it’s great. Most of us are young and will be back next year.”
LB Kevin Davis
(on how satisfying it was to shut New Mexico down the way they did)
“It was awesome. I think we did pretty well against the top rushing team in the country.”
(on if this victory was the perfect way to close down Hughes Stadium)
“What better way to go out than with a win at Hughes. I have so many memories here. A lot of people have a very close connection with the stadium. So it was awesome to not only do it for ourselves and become bowl eligible, but for the community as well.”
(on how satisfying it is to be bowl eligible as a senior)
“I would have been pretty disappointed if our season was over after next week. I am excited to play one more game.”
(on why the defense was so much better this week against New Mexico’s option offense compared to last weeks Air Force option offense)
“I think as a defense we did our jobs better. We played as a unit. It was not just one guy making a tackle. We made sure that they were all gang tackles. We were being more aggressive overall.”
(on two true freshmen, Jamal Hicks and Arjay Jean, starting the game on defense)
“I was very impressed with those guys. They come to work every week. They ask, they learn, and they showed up today.”
(thoughts about the post-game celebration)
“It was awesome. I got to see my family. It was a great experience with the guys. We are bowl eligible.”
(on if he took one last look at the stadium when he walked off)
“I was one of those guys who looked back at it and thought about the great times I’ve had here and the great times I’ve had at CSU.”
NEW MEXICO HEAD COACH BOB DAVIE
(opening statement)
“They outplayed us, they were more physical than us, we couldn’t tackle them, we couldn’t tackle the receiver after he caught it. They whipped us. They deserved to win.”
(on the play of his team in the second half)
“Well, we scored some points, you know, but we never really stopped them. We scored some points. You know, I thought Lamar (Lamar Jordan) came in and you know Lamar played pretty good. We certainly had some more opportunities in the first half, we had a couple of explosive plays that we kind of under-threw the ball. We had some penalties. Our offense, we kept playing but they played at a different speed than us tonight, without any doubt.”
(on if CSU did anything different schematically)
“They played one in the middle and they did play their ends wider than some teams have played them, kind of forced us to give the ball but you know we kind of adjusted to that. It wasn’t anything that we didn’t anticipate. They just played faster, particularly their offense. Again, you know a balanced offense with really good players and a really good scheme, we still - - we’ll get another test next week at about this same time to see if we are for real or not and see if we can defend a good offense.”
(on his team’s ability to tackle tonight)
“Like I said, they were playing at a different speed. There’s no question about that. We had a hard time from the beginning of slowing them down. There certainly was a lot of energy in that stadium. That student body was on fire and it was a lot of energy in that stadium but that wasn’t the reason. It was a combination of a lot of things but they took it to us.”
(on how he thinks his team will respond)
“Well, we will be in tomorrow. We’re bringing them in tomorrow at 3:30 and we’re going to watch every play of this tape, we’re going to watch every play of Wyoming and we’re not going to let it end like this. You know, we’ve got another team very similar to this team, Saturday, playing for the Mountain championship so we’re going to get their best shot. So we’ve got to get back to Albuquerque and regroup and figure out exactly what happened but I know this, they knocked us back with bigger bodies and they made us miss with faster bodies and that’s the reality of what that was.”
(on his team’s chance to get to eight wins on the season)
“You know, we’re a 7-4 team, but with what happened tonight, that’s unacceptable. Again, credit to them. I thought they played like I thought they were capable of playing. They’re one of the hottest offenses, as I said during the week, one of the hottest offenses, I think, in college football, to be quite honest. You know with the quarterback playing the way he’s playing and No. 4, the wide receiver, and No. 8—we tried to recruit No. 8 for a reason—and he took it to us. They all took it to us. 1, 35, 25, whatever tailback they had in there was licking their chops tonight.”
NEW MEXICO PLAYERS
S DANIEL HENRY
(outlook on the game)
“It is what it is. We didn’t come out and play the way we wanted to. Everybody in the stands knows that, everyone in the nation knows that. But now it is just looking forward to next week. We are a 7-4 team, this is a situation now that we did not want to be in, but we have more to play for. This is not the end of our season and this is not the thing that is going to break us. We are always going to keep fighting no matter what. If we are 3-7, it is the same mind-set no matter what.”
WR DAMEON GAMBLIN
(on what Colorado State did defensively)
“They focused on stopping the run. That was the main focus but we’ve got to be better. As an offense and as a complete unit, we’ve got to be better.”
(on his overall thoughts about the night)
“We’ve got to keep getting better. One of my closest friends who I consider a brother, Rashard Higgins, you know he rocked this stadium for so many years. He actually called me before the game and told me I’ve got to give it a good send off. I got in the end zone for him. Being able to do that in his stadium, somebody who is so close to me, who has done so well here, it is a blessing.”
