Quotes From Louisville-Kentucky Football Game
September 02, 2000 | Football
Sept. 2, 2000
Louisville 40, Kentucky 34 (overtime)
Post-Game Quotes
Kentucky Head Coach Hal Mumme Comments
"It was a great ball game. I'm just sorry it got interrupted by the rain delay. Of course, we're disappointed. I have to take my hat off to Louisville. They made the plays when they needed them and their defense came up with some really huge plays. A first game is always hard. We made a lot of mistakes and ran some sloppy plays. It's so late ... I'm exhausted and I know my players are exhausted. Louisville really hurt us in the middle (on offense). They took advantage because we are very young with freshmen playing there."
(on Jared Lorenzen's play) "He made his mistakes -- this was his first start -- but this was something he can build on and get better from. He's a redshirt freshman, we didn't expect him to play flawlessly. He made two or three throws that nobody else can make. I felt good about him. I just wish he hadn't thrown an interception in overtime."
(on Louisville's running game) "I don't know who said they didn't have a running game. Lester was very highly recruited last year. We knew they had a running game."
(on playing Louisville) "It's not that important of a game for us. The important games for us are conference games. I know everyone likes to make it seem like a big deal, but we don't really benefit from playing a team that lives to beat us. It's just the first game. We're going to be over it by Monday."
Louisville Head Coach John L. Smith
"I think we played good at times. The thing that we've got to do it try to play that way all the time and eliminate those crucial mistakes.
(on the blocked field goal attempt) "You try to overload and bring as many guys on the one side that you can and get some jumpers in the middle. It maybe had a little bit of a low trajectory on it and we were lucky enough to get a hand on it."
"It was such a roller coaster game. We'd goof up on offense and the defense would get us back together. Or we'd goof up on defense and the offense would pull us back together. That's what it's about -- pulling each other back up. We can really build on this and, before the year's out, be a pretty good football team. But we have a long way to go."
(on Tony Stallings) "He did a great job. He ran like a freight train. Chris Lester did a great job too. Our offensive line is to be complimented. Those guys are so much bigger, stronger and tougher than we are, we ran the ball pretty good."
(on applying pressure later in the game) "We weren't getting much pressure. They did a good job picking things up. The rain delay may have helped us a little bit because we were able to come in and chalk up a couple of more things to help us out."
"We had our measure of adversity tonight. That builds your character. We're starting to find out what we're made of. I hope our character is not about that many mistakes, but I hope its about getting back up when you get knocked down and doing what it takes to win."
Louisville Player Quotes
Curry Burns, sophomore, safety
(on the blocked field goal) "That's the question of the day. I asked the Lord to jump high enough and all the credit goes to him. Right before the play, I was saying 'we have to get him.' I had a doubt in mind that he (Brandon Sanders) was going to get it and I jumped high enough."
(on the defense) "This is a great start. We are still learning and we can learn a lot from this game. We still have to play better."
Derrick Kennedy, senior, defensive tackle
(on the blocked field goal) It is my job and Donovan Arp's to push on the guard, which gave Curry room to jump. We have do it. I didn't know what happened because I was on the ground. I then looked up, and saw the ball rolled out of the back of the end zone."
(on the defense) "We had to adjust and we gave him (Jared Lorenzen) too long. We asked ourselves who was going to step up. We have the ability to fight back and we will continue to fight. You look at their side, they were kneeling down. We just pulled together a team."
(on Dave Ragone) "He did better than Lorenzen. They both did a good job, but Dave kept his composure, delivered the ball and he showed he could do it in a game. He has done good in practice and he stepped up in the game."
Donovan Arp, senior, defensive tackle
(on whether he has ever played in a game like this) "No, nothing even comes close to comparing to this game. The intensity, the emotion ... it was over my head."
(on the delay) "We were ready to go from halftime. I didn't want to come off the field. I wanted to use that momentum because I thought we had a pretty good momentum swing. But we came back in, ironed out a few little details that we needed to workout on defense and it worked out."
Dave Ragone, sophomore, quarterback
(on the final play of regulation) "To be honest, I didn't even watch the play. Everyone was saying 'We're going to block the field goal, we're going to stop them.' We had faith and we blocked the field goal."
(on if he has ever been in a game like this) "My last senior game in high school was like this. Both teams have the same emotions, same thing going, tables turning and all that stuff. It was adversity on both teams. Every team responded. We both played our hearts out. We came out ahead, but both teams left it out there."
Tony Stallings, junior, runningback
(on the winning touchdown in overtime) "I was as surprised as you all. I was prepared to break it outside because we had been getting them inside all day. So I thought they would going to push me to the outside, so I was prepared to go out with the counter. But man, I saw Johnny Unitas (statue) and just ran to it. The line got them on the ground and there was one man to beat and that was it."
(on the slow early start on the running game) "We were just getting used to what they were giving us. I was rotating with Chris (Lester) and I want to give him credit for doing a good job, too. He was seeing what the defense was giving him on different runs, and we never got the same ones. When I got in, I was running plays we had already run and I didn't know where they were going to be. It just took time and I was trying to get into a rhythm the more I got in there. After a couple series, I knew what they were going to give me and we could start picking and choosing our runs."
(on playing running back tonight) "It was lovely. It was like high school again. I could control a lot of things that happen. I always thought it was an important position in high school and it was fun. I thank the coaches for letting me get the switch (from defense last year). You can get your emotions all choked up. I have been waiting a long time, three years, for this."
Chris Lester, junior, runningback
(on getting the running game going) "Actually, I felt real good. Tony (Stallings) and I communicated when we came off the field and talked about how we need to execute, what the plays looked like and we went out there and did our job. He gave me the look and I gave him the look. It was 100 percent execution"
(on the game being exciting) "It was very exciting, even when we had the break in the locker room (due to lightning suspension). The adrenaline was going. We couldn't calm down and we couldn't wait to get back out there."
(on what coach told them during the break) "He just told us to know our jobs and know our assignments and go out there and execute. You couldn't do any better than that."
