Louisville vs. Temple Postgame Quotes
September 27, 2003 | Football
Sept. 27, 2003
Recap?|? Final Stats?|? Notes
Louisville Head Coach Bobby Petrino
"I don't think I did a good job of calling the game. I didn't do a good job of putting Justin in good situations. We really got out of rhythm and lost our tempo on offense. Any time a QB goes down and the backup comes in, everyone else around him has to step up and play better. We didn't do that. It looked like at times we were going to do it, but we'd get a penalty. We hadn't had that many penalties on offense all year long."
"The defense stepped up and did a great job. They got sacks, rushed the passer and kept them out of the end zone. Our special teams played well. I really thought this would be a high scoring game. Our defensive coaches had a great plan. Our defense plays extremely hard but played way too many plays. That's a good team win. When you feel like the strength of your team is your offense and they don't get the job done, the defense and special teams step up and get the job done, then maybe we've got something special going on around here."
Temple Head Coach Bobby Wallace
"I'm very proud of our players coming out to play the second half the way they did. Obviously, we've got some problems with kicking. The first extra point we missed, we kicked low and blocked it by hitting our guard in the back of the helmet. That second half is how I would like to see us play for 60 minutes, but we haven't done that yet."
(on whether to go for two or kick and extra point on their second TD) "I had no idea we would kick that kind of extra point. I still had confidence in that area of the game. We hadn't missed an extra point all year long. I wanted to get it (the margin) to eight and put the pressure on them."
(on Louisville) "I think they're a very good football team, very strong and big. Offensively, they do a great job with a lot of unusual sets. They were a very different team when (QB Stefan LeFors) went out. I think this is a very nice environment and a beautiful stadium. I'm impressed with this place."
(on TE Ronnie Ghent's second quarter TD) "It was a tremendous effort on his part. It was thrown up high and he made a great catch."
Louisville Quarterback Justin Rascati
"It was a lot of fun. I was a little nervous at first. I didn't do my best job but we got the win. Now I have to go back and watch a lot of tape to see what I did wrong so I don't do it again. All that matters to me is that we won and that we're moving on next week to our conference schedule."
(on his play) "The last drive in the second quarter was good but other than that, all that matters is that we won, we are 4-0 and now we head into the conference schedule next week and look to win a conference championship."
(on if he was nervous) "I was a lot more nervous this week than I was last week. Temple is a good football team with a lot of speed on defense. I came in with a 14-point lead and all I wanted to do is make sure that we won."
(on if his final interception was an audible) "It was a called play. It worked all week in practice. I just read it wrong. I actually could have thrown in to J.R. (Russell) on the outside. Again, I'll go back and fix that in the film room."
Louisville Center Dan Koons
"It's an adjustment. Stefan's left handed and Justin's right handed. We wanted to run the ball a little more. We didn't run the ball as well as we needed to. We wanted to take a little pressure off of Justin. I thought he did a good job today being thrown into the fire. He does practice with the "ones" (first- team offense) every day."
(on today's game) "You kind of get the feeling that we didn't play very well. They (Temple) never stopped us the whole game. We stopped ourselves with holding penalties, off-sides, false starts. Our defense really kept us in the game but we defintely felt like we didn't play our best game."
Louisville Wide Receiver J.R. Russell
(on adjusting without Stefan LeFors) "It wasn't that tough. It was good that it happened now so we can what we are working with but I Rascati is capable of coming and doing what he needs to do. He practices every day like Stefan. It was just a little test for us before we got into conference play in case it happens down the line. He performed line."
(on beginning conference play) "The second season starts next week. We are 4-0 but we have to take them one at a time. We want that conference championship so we'll be ready next week."
